There’s a Pikachu statue near the entrance of one of the stores in the Japan Pavilion. As I carried my son (18 months) past it, he pointed and wanted to get down to go see it. There was a teen girl sitting on the floor a couple of feet to the left of Pikachu with a hoodie pulled over her face. The only reason I even noticed this girl was because her English Mastiff service dog was lying on the floor in front of her. My son loves dogs and I didn’t want to put him down on the ground and have him run up to the dog, so I took a few seconds to quietly tell him, “You see that dog? That’s a ‘no touch.’ He’s working so we need to leave him alone. No touch, okay?” Because, you know, I’m just trying to be a decent person and make sure me and mine don’t disturb other people or encroach on their personal space. I put him down and he buzzes right past the dog to the Pikachu. Perfect.
My husband pulls out his phone to take a picture. The girl is sitting far enough to the side that it’s not at all difficult to keep her out of the shot by aligning Pikachu to the left of the frame, which is what my husband was doing. He couldn’t get a decent picture because my son wouldn’t turn around and look in our direction, so after a few seconds of trying to get his attention, I jumped up there with him and knelt down on the opposite side of Pikachu from the girl. As I’m trying to wrangle my son into position to look at the camera, I notice my husband has momentarily put his phone down. He kinda tilted his head to indicate why, and it was because the girl’s father had backed up close enough to Pikachu that my husband couldn’t take the picture without getting him in it. We waited for a bit for him to move out of the way, but he just kept backing farther and farther into the shot. I’m not usually one to speak up but this guy seemed completely oblivious to our presence, and by the time I said something he was standing directly in front of the Pikachu with his rear end inches from my face. I (very politely) said something to the effect of, “Excuse me, would you mind stepping aside for just a second so my husband can take a picture?”
He replied, “she doesn’t like to be in pictures,” referring to his teen daughter. He was
intentionally trying to block the shot so we wouldn’t get a picture with his daughter in the background. That was so not the response I was expecting and I stupidly and way too cheerfully said, “Oh, I understand!” Then, after kneeling there for a few more seconds and realizing this guy had no intention of moving so we could take a photo, rather stunned, I picked up my son and left without getting a picture.
To recap: His daughter doesn’t like to be in pictures so he brings her to one of the busiest tourist destinations on the planet where she parks herself next to an object that’s likely to draw attention and be used as a photo op. Someone feet away pulls out a camera to take a picture of their own family and instead of — telling her to move, look the other way, don’t sit there in the first place, reassuring her she’s far enough away not to be in frame, reminding her she only has about three inches of her face visible because of how tightly she has the hoodie tied around her head — he thinks the most reasonable course of action is to walk in front of the camera and physically block that picture from happening. Upon further reflection, I wish I had told him to get bent.