A Japanese railway employee has become the subject of online outrage after displaying questionable conduct to appease a passenger grievance on Monday.
One of Nankai Electric Railway’s conductors, whose name was not revealed, reportedly made an announcement that may sound offensive to foreigners, RocketNews24 reported.
During one scheduled trip, the conductor made his routine announcements in Nihongo, enumerating each upcoming station and saying the usual “Thank yous” for travelling with Nankai Electric Railway.
The conductor also made a surprising comment as he was signing off by adding: “We apologize for the inconvenience of many foreign passengers being on the train today.”
Aside form the message bordering on hate speech, it was also found to be highly unusual since the train was bound for the Kansai International Airport. This meant that it would be quite normal to have many foreigners aboard the train at the time.
A woman passenger from the particular trip later informed the station staff of the unfortunate announcement. The conductor’s supervisors eventually learned about the incident later on.
For his defense, the conductor, said he only added the apology by the end of his announcements after one Japanese passenger reportedly remarked loudly on the train, “There are so many foreigners in the way.”
According to the conductor, he was hoping that his message would prevent any untoward incident between him and the foreign passengers. Since he spoke in Japanese, he was expecting that only Japanese will understand what he was saying anyway. He claimed that he, “had no intention of being discriminatory.”
Nankai said that its management has informed its employee that making such distinctions between passengers was inappropriate.
In a statement, the company said: “Both Japanese and foreign passengers alike are our customers.” The firm also promised to prevent any similar incident from ever happening again.
