They’re Everywhere
June 10, 2010 § 4 Comments
After a long & bountiful day of shopping, Kaiti and I settled onto a relatively empty subway train to go home. Soon after we got on, a mentally deranged Indian man listening to his mp3 player sat down one seat away from me and crossed his legs. I actually didn’t notice him until his toe touched my foot — the man had rather long limbs. I moved my foot away slightly, thinking it was an accident.
His foot moved closer and touched mine again.
My brain numbed.
“THIS MAN IS TRYING TO PLAY FOOTSIE WITH ME ON THE SUBWAY,” I whispered urgently to Kaiti out of the side of my mouth.
I turned so that he couldn’t reach my feet anymore and glanced at our reflections in the window on the opposite side. He was staring in our direction. He then stretched his arm across the back of the seat so that his fingers brushed my shoulders.
I almost died.
Kaiti almost died too…of laughter.
She was convulsing with silent guffaws with her head turned away so that he couldn’t see, while I concentrated on not making any movements at all. But I cringed inside like a slug on a patch of salt.
DON’T LOOK AT HIM. JUST DON’T LOOK.
His arm retracted, but I could tell that he was still staring hard at us. I turned my head abruptly to glare at him, and he immediately looked away. I really wanted to give him a piece of my mind but couldn’t think of what to say. I turned back to stare out the dark window.
He started making noises to himself.
“Darling!” he yelled, among some other incomprehensible gibberish.
What the f…was he talking to us?
As I watched his reflection in the window, I also kept scanning the four young men sitting across from us. They apparently took no notice of the strange occurrences on this side of the train. If something dire happened, would they react?
The creep’s mp3 player got louder, and I could hear “Jai Ho” playing. Out of the corner of my eye I could see his fingers fiddling around in his lap, and I was honestly afraid that he would pull his wiener out and commit an act of public indecency. At the same time, Kaiti speculated that he would pull out a knife. I’m not sure which prospect would be more frightening, frankly.
Just as I was about to explode with tension, he got up and left [FINALLY]. After the subway doors closed, Kaiti and I collapsed into a squirming, squealing blob of indignation.
WHY DO THESE THINGS HAPPEN?! WHY!!!
auradis 
Totally creepy.
I consider Hong Kong a pretty safe and decent place… I’ve spent quite a bit of time in HK before, visiting family, staying there for months, etc. and have done some early morning and late night subway travels before and I’ve never seen something like this before. Suffice to say, I don’t mean it doesn’t exist – just that it’s hard to imagine something like this happening and so obvious too! I consider HK even safer than being in Canada, haha.
I certainly hope the guys sitting across from you would actually act if something DID happen – even if they didn’t outright fight, at least call (or pretend) to notify the police/security. I suppose that’s why I always like to escort girls I go out with at least to the gates before exiting the paid area (or all the way to her place if the area is reputable for being a ‘bad’ area). It’s definitely not your fault for this happening, but if you don’t react negatively to his touches, then it’s natural that he’d “continue” or even worse, “advance”.
I can imagine there would’ve been a lot of fear in you, but the best thing probably would’ve been to just stand up and move away. It’s better to attract attention to yourself which would deter most predators. They’re unlikely to attack if they know there are witnesses and really, they just want a nice grab/rub/touch/whatever – not to cause trouble. And trust me, pulling out his wiener is probably a lot safer than him pulling out a knife or other weapon.
This is no laughing matter, yet I cannot help but laugh.
I met a guy even worse than this one before in Shanghai. Also I was alone that day which really made me freak out.