Whaling and attacking vietnam

guy who hates us b/c wont let japan whale and it attacked vietnam.

World Baseball Classic No.1

Finally baseball has a world series that actually includes other countries.

The baseball classic has been a success overall and let me just say that in a way I'm glad that the US didn't take home the trophy. There would have been the usual complaints of how one sided it is and so on. So other teams had a shot, they played well, people in lots of countries were excited, and the next one will surely be even better. And even though I'm American I think we need to lose these things sometimes in order to wake up to the reality of the world out there. Too often we join these things pretty they don't count and get kicked in our half-assed attempts.

A few days ago there was an outcry in japan because of a bad call by a US umpire. Actually it's true the guy made a horrible call. But I think my Japanese friends seem to forget that they lost the game basically though poor playing not because of that guy's call. They all started saying "America is the home of baseball. Why is the referee so bad? It must be discrimination." never mind that there are bad calls in every football world cup, olympics and so on, or that the US team also was the victim of some questionable calls in other games. Even the japanese players were saying some things, bringing the whole cultural thing into it. I think if there were a bad call in the lympics, I'd say "Hmm, that judge is an idiot/ jerk/ biased" but I wouldn't start some nonsense like "people in America believe in fairness so we can't understand why the Belgian judge is unfair. We Americans like fair. It's our culture. " etc etc which is what i was hearing when baseball team japan was on the ropes and losing to korea.

So my japanese associates, after losing to nemesis South Korea twice said "It's not fair we don't have our pro players, like matsui (one guy!) but Korea and America do! And we are a small country. It's not fair."

I still can't understand the reasoning so prevalent in Japan that even though it is much larger than Korea and Cuba, Japan is somehow smaller. Fuzzy logic was perfectd here. Also japan had some of it's best players on the team: matsuzaka, a great young pitcher, ichiro, who is a household name on both sides of the pacific. Not fair?

So a few days later when japan beat Cuba, everybody was deservedly happy. Congratulations on a job well done. I'm happy the even went relatively smoothly and many nations got to take part and have a real shot at the trophy. I think the results speak for the fairness of the games. But a few days after the shouts of unfair, unfair, all my Japanese associates ae laughing and saying "Why didn't America win? You are so big and strong? Why why? Ha ha it's strange you don't win."

Can you imagine the outcries had the US won? Unfair, unfair. You big bully. All I can really say is sometimes no matter what, we simply can't win.

Australians are Dirtry

Caveat: what people say about Australians in this post is somewhat typical. What is more typical is the way they approach a new situation. I think it shows the way many people view "the outside world."

One of my students told me about her recent stay in Australia, where she lived both with an Australian family and with other exchange students from various countries in a kind of boarding house. During the days she studied English at a conversation school.

So, I asked, how was Australia?
I think Australian people and European people are dirty, she said (a woman of about 28 who obviously has some interest in foreign lands.)
Oh really, how come?
Because they don't wash their dishes.
They don't wash thier dishes?
Well, they wash the food off but they don't wash the soap bubbles off.

Ok, I've heard this one before. It's true. A lot of Australians don't wash the soap suds off. Why? Mmmmm, maybe because 80% of the land mass is a desert? Now I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't know that, say if you lived in the states, France, maybe even japan, though actually in Japan7s case due to tourism and working holidays and so on I'd say most of my students, especially those that lived in Australia for 2 mos, have a better working knowledge of the country than most N. Americans or Europeans do. I think your average canadian or Italain would be able to name only Sydney, as an Australian city but I think more Japanese would be able to come up with Brisbane or Melbourne for example. Good for them!

Now let's say you didn't know why Aussie's dont wash off the suds, what would you do? I think you'd do this thing called "speculation." You'd say "Hmm, maybe water is expensive. Or maybe they think it's bad luck. Or heck, maybe even Australian soap suds are tasty and nutritious and contain hard to find iodine."

Ok, I don7t know exactly what you might do, especially in the year 2066, but I do know what most japanese I klnow would do in this situation. They would analyze it in terms of "like."
ie: Japanese like clean. Australians don't like clean. End of analysis.

So when there7s a social problem in japan or another country, people say "Japanese dont like crime. Japanese dont like divorce." with the implications that the rest of the planet does.

So, my 28 year old student spent 2 mos in Australia, so I figured I'd help her figure out why, rather that just say it outright. If I say these things outright people tend to think I'm making excuses. So I said,
"Which part of Australia did you stay in"
"Perth"
Perth is in western australia and is particularly dry.
"I see. How was the weather?"
"Very hot!"
"Did it rain?"
"No, everyday sunny."
"Sunny and hot. No rain for 2 months."
"That7s right."
"Ok, did you fly from japan to sydney?" Sydney's on the other side of the continent,
"yes."
"Ok, so I guess you flew from Sydney to Perth?"
"Right... it took 5 hours."
"Did you see the ground under the plane?"
"Mmmm, desert."
"I see. So the people in your guest house didn't wash the soap off?"
"Well, the Australian didn't but we japanese always washed the soap off very carefully. We like clean. Oh, and the Europeans didn't wash soap too."
"But you have no idea why."
"Mmmm, dirty? Don't care?"
Another student tried to help. She explained carefully to me, step by step. "Uh, teacher, you see, Japanese people like clean. We don't like soap on dishes..."
"Ok, ok, ok, I'll tell you... the reason they don't wash the soap off is because there is very little water."
"Ehhhhhh?" (=Japanese surprise sound.) Long pause, eyes wide open, other students all looking at each other as they process this revalation.
"What about the European people?"
"Well, I guess they didn't wash soap because they were also in Australia where there is no water."
"So European people don't like soap on dishes?"
"No, nobody does! I'm sure people in France and germany wash thier dishes."
"How about America? Do you?"
"yes, of course we wash the soap off."
"Really? You don't like it? Japanese people don't like soap on dishes? We like clean"

etc etc