'Mericans git edumacated on the East

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It was a normal winter Sunday in Edo. A clear day with a bit of a cold wind blowing. But only cold if one considers 46 degrees at 9:30am cold. I didn't use to, but now, having forgotten what a real winter is, I do.

I was on the train to Shibuya, listening to the usual autumn through March sniffling from colds. There were the light little feminine "sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, sniffs" which were usually done by women. These were often drowned out by the more manly "snort, sniff, sniff, sniff, snort" which were most often done by men. Occasionally enough to add a slow beat, was the deep nose, head, and lung clearing "SNNN.....OOOOOOO....RRRR....TTTTTT!!!!!!!!" that's always done by men. I hope.

Although the Sniffing Symphony was keeping a nice, steady, never pausing rhythm, for some odd reason I decided to get off 2 stations early at Nakameguro and walk to Shibuya from there.

During my stroll, I recalled a recent article I had read in the Washington Post about some US English teacher employed by a local school in Okinawa who had gotten in a bit of trouble with the 2-chan folk. Seems he posted a video about a class discussion about racism he had with his young students at the school. According to the article, his vice-principle thought the class was a good thing, until the nice 2-chan people convinced him and the school otherwise.

Well, this was no shock to me of course, for it is normal in Japan for nails that stick up to get banged down. Most especially if the nail is not critical of everything Chinese, Korean, liberal, or moderate. Come to think of it, I couldn't remember the last time some left-wing group gathered around a conservative's house with trucks and loudspeakers.

The surprise to me was that upon reading the comments, I found that Americans---here I am speaking of folks from the US---have become so knowledgeable able things Japanese. Why it wasn't long ago that people knew nothing about this poorly understood, mysterious extremely-well researched country. Must have been something to do with Zen.

Some of those folks seemed to know the Japanese school system in unusual detail---even more detail than the US system they had gone through. Not only that, they were very forceful, even strident, in their opinions.  One was so enthusiastic that he explained the staunchly conservative Japan view of the reason for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Another, so overcome with emotion at the idea that a foreign guest of Japan had made critical comments about the country, that he even began to attack his own countrymen as "ignorant, arrogant Americans."

I must say it's about time. For the last few years I have watched Americans, especially those in smaller towns in the midwest with nice average names like Richard in Cedar Falls, John in Skunk Hollar, and so forth, surprise me with detailed knowledge about China. Now we have folks, though with cuter names like NEMO, with detailed knowledge of Japan. They must have gone to similar, but opposing schools, for although they generally tend to dislike America (and thus themselves?) they dislike each others' favorite foreign country even more.

Well, I finally got to Shibuya about 30 minutes later, had lunch, dropped into the Tower Record bookstore, took some photos, then went back to the station to head home. I was pleased to see it was quiet in front of Shibuya station today, since the beer-bellied ojiisans who often shout at NHK for its near traitorous support of Korea had apparently chosen not to do so today.