Thems Be the Rules

While on the subject of security gurads in Japan, I was approached in English by an older gentleman at Meiji Jingu who told me, “no photography”.  I was standing on the top step of the altar area where you give your offering, but on the stairway side, taking a picture of the shrine courtyard – opposite the sacred inner-sanctum (It’s pretty obvious to me to not be a cultural boor and take a picture of the sacred areas).  He pointed at the one step down from the top.  I stepped down one level and he walked away.  Essentially, if I wasn’t on the top step, I was out of his jurisdiction and responsibility, and I could go and do whatever I pleased and he didn’t care.  This is the kind of compartmentalized thinking that leads to nuclear powerplants melting down.