expression repression

5pmish 19/11/05 Have just been banned from playing my recorder on a train. (I started whistling straight after, as the tunes coming into my mind had to be expressed, but...) This is abominable! Music is the language of the soul! How can the soul be limited by a train conductor?! What kind of repressed country is this?! Presumably if I were to ask why, the answer would be 「他のお客様に迷惑なのです。」 At which I would ask the other passengers, if it was, indeed, 迷惑. And if any of them actually admitted to being annoyed by my recorder playing, I would feel sad for a country where people are repressed to the extent that they can’t even ask someone nicely if they’ll play a little quieter or in a different carriage (or not at all). Ideally, everyone else in the carriage would join in, and we could have a multiple soulful expression session!
Am I being culturally intolerant? Or are they being culturally intolerant?

(ok, so I’m probably going thru a slight “annoyed with Japan” phase. Which doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying myself.)