Imagine this: you’re on the go, your phone is draining, and—you see a socket in a public place. You plug in. What could go wrong?
Ahm… in Japan, suposedly, quite a bit.
In a recent story, an influencer from Japan posted an unwarranted photo of what appears to be a Chinese tourist ‘charging’ their phone at what looks like a phone charger spewing out of the wall. This influencer has around 415k followers. Seems like an innocent enough picture, but as I’m sure you can guess, the internet was anything but tame about the picture.
The image was posted around April and soon made its way to the infamous application X, where it earned a whopping 8.4 million views and over 61k likes. I guess this level of notoriety wasn’t enough for Hezuruy. Guess what he did instead? He “accused” the tourist of ‘electricity theft’ claiming it was a form of crime surfacing in society. The absolute audacity! He also decided to roll out with “If you can’t follow the rules, go back to your own country”. I am so overwhelmed.
I don’t think I need to say it, but it triggered an outrage across China and Japan. The netizens showed no mercy to Japanese side and a bunch of comments supporting the Chinese side were flooded. The statements became wild such as “Don’t come to another country and act however you want. Don’t you have a battery pack?”
Others contributed with something like:
Not everyone saw it this way, however. Quite a few people defended Hezuruy for being overly dramatic or too harsh. He said:
“I don’t think that’s disrespectful behavior. Everyone has charging stations in China, and it’s an everyday thing.”
Another person ridiculed Japan.
Cultural Clashes or Just a Dead Battery?
Let’s face it, free phone charging stations in malls, train stations, or airports, are commonplace in many parts of the Asia region, including major cities such as Seoul. Beijing and Singapore. So a tourist whimsically trying to charge his battery in Japan may find himself in hot water.
The deeper question is, does public use electricity really need to be so highly regulated? And if this justifies telling someone to leave the country?
Final Plug
Regardless of your opinion, this has transformed into an inter-culturial dispute. Maybe the issue is less about access to power and more about expectations, patterns, and social media’s unnatural love for chaos and conflict.
So the next time you are going on a trip and your phone’s battery is running low, you might want to consider taking that power bank along—just in case the internet is keeping tabs on you.
