Shh! Maiko is asleep in my room. She's staying here this weekend because some creepy Korean guy on the train followed her to her subway stop and begged her to have a drink with him and now keeps calling her. "Do you know the word 'stalker'?" she asked. Why yes, I do! Apparently, this is not unheard of in Japan either.

A Korean friend of hers called the guy, pretending to be her boyfriend, but the guy called again, so her friend also called the guy's office and talked to his boss. When I expressed some surprise at this extreme measure, Maiko said that this was what someone in Japan would do also, in order to exert even more pressure on the stalker to stop what he was doing. Whoa. In the U.S., I wouldn't be able to even see the lawsuit coming, it'd be headed here so fast.

On an unrelated topic, sneezing twice in Japan means that someone is talking about you. Sneezing three times means that something good is coming your way. Start counting.