Ehime maru? Never heard of it.

A japanese sub surface recently and struck a civilian sub off Miyazaki. Exactly like the ehime maru disater of about 5 years ago.

Absolutely no mention of it.... whn i bring it up people can not see any relation ship here. Not to mention the half dozen other accidents like it involving Japanese subs that PRECEEDED the ehime maru fiasco.

No yime here, but just do a web search for ehime maru. It was tragic but the real shocker was the fury surrounding it. I've never been so ashamed of my Japanese friends. Maybe even worse that the half dozen youths who assaulted/accosted me last week until the cops came and took ME away to the station. That's a differnt blog I didnt write yet.

The red meat thing

People here are utterly convinced that Americans eat nothing but beef 24/7 x 365.

Someone asked me if I can eat japanese food. I said yes. Since we were talking about my "hometown" at the time I explained further that there are a lot of Japanese restaurants in my hometown.

Immediately she said "Oh, Yoshinoya?"

This is a Japanese fast food chain that serves only beef bowl, in particular US beef. In other words, the only restaurant that would work in the US.

The day before, at a linch event, I got asked by a person, who has known me for at least 5 years and also knows that I've lived here for over 10 years if I have "ever used chopsticks."

Not can you but "have you EVER used chopsticks."

She was shocked and impressed when I said that I had and she told me how great i was and how I had adjusted to Japanese life so well. Kinda like if I made my own poison darts and dugout canoe after living with an amazon tribe for 10 years?

Just to put an exclamation point on it, this was after we had been talking about my snowboarding trip and the homebrew beer I had just given the, So I can ski down the top of a mountain, make my own beer... but it's shocking to her that a guy she's been chatting with Japanese for the past 30 minutes has ever used chopsticks.

She's a nice lady who gives me lots of presents so it's hard to scold her, but c'mon, think a little.

I still havent figured out how the chopstick thing got so blown out of proportion.

No labor day

I was at a dinner party recently. The American holiday Thanksgiving was coming uo. By chance, this year a Japanese holiday falls on the same day. Here it's called "Labor Thanksgiving Day" or in other words what w call "Labor day" in the states, a holiday to appreciate people who work.

A woman asked me "Is American Thanksgiving the same as japanese?" and the doctor next to her cut her off. He said "Don't be silly, they don't have Labor thanksgiving day like us. Ha ha." His tone and later discussion implied that Japan has a special appreciation for the worker that is missing in the states. Perhaps only Japan has a Labor day.

The woman looked at me. I said "We have a different holiday, called Labor Day, in September, which is the same as the Japanese November holidy."

The woman looked at the doctor. He was still explaining his thoery the way doctors and teachers do, regardless of who's listening. He said "No, they dont have a Labor Day."

By the way, this dinner was for a volunteer group dedicated to fostering international ties. A lot of the members are also Lions Club menbers, and they even wrote a song about themselves that they play again and again at these events, somethng like "Our club wabts to make friends, liet's be friends and learn about each other..." etc