A Thought

It's so crazy to think that I'm leaving (relatively) safe Japan for America in a few months.

I'm scared. That's only a half  joke. I was anxious coming to Japan because I was coming alone, I was going to start from the ground up, pay bills, live alone, and generally be an adult for the first time in an unfamiliar country with unfamiliar people and an unfamiliar culture. It's true Japan is safer than America: America's effing dangerous!

The first day I was at my favorite school, the students had their first bi-annual emergency drill. While we were all convened on the hard-packed dirt yard, "Auntie" sensei asked me about my religion. This was only our second conversation. The first had been the day I came to meet the principal and other English teacher. That first conversation was generally, "Nice to meet you, I'm looking forward to meeting you, excuse me, I have a class now."

This second conversation, she looked at me and asked if I was Christian. Over the past couple of years, our relationship has been based on this candid sort of approach. Simply by default, we can talk about things like this. We've had pretty significant talks about religion and American policy, which is saying something given how naturally diplomatic the Japanese are.

I mean, public toilets come equipped with the sound of a waterfall to cover the sound of your business. This is a POLITE country.

So given our conversational history, it wasn't shocking at all to me today when Auntie asked me about gun-policy in America. She wanted to know why America has so many more gun accidents than Japan, because we're not naive: we know there's gun violence anywhere there are guns. Duh. Just in Japan, it's miniscule compared to the absolute cluster America has become in recent years.

The simplest way I could explain it to her was by summarizing the "right to bear arms" part of the Constitution. But, I told her, that was written in a time when America was defending itself against external control by an old country that the new citizens of America had left because THEY. DIDN'T. WANT. TO. BE. CONTROLLED. ANYMORE.

We agreed that America has, over it's 200 + years become adapted to the "we are right, you are wrong" way of thinking. I also told her that this idea of America being the best has been warped considerably to the point that Americans are blind to its flaws. At one point, yes, America was a powerhouse. But we've slipped since then, and a large number of very loud people refuse to admit that.

America has a lot going for it. We have a diverse culture. We have a beautiful nation. We have food and drug policies. We have democracy and freedom of religion. But we also have violence, drugs, corruption, and numerous health problems battling with an crippled healthcare system. We're not terrible, but we're not the greatest.

We came to the conclusion, she and I, that to make a country better, it's people have to be humble of their country's misgivings, but also proud of their country's achievements and benefits; respectful of tradition, and brave enough to change.

Anyway, that's my two yen for today.