A Japanese View of Americans

Abstract

When Yoshio Sakurauchi, the Speaker of the Lower House of the Japanese Diet, spoke of the inferiority of American labor, a strange chemical behavior plagued Americans, as if the remark had been a long-awaited confirmation of weekly news opinion polls. Americans seem to feel the loss of Japanese respect as gravely as any economic loss. While radical groups in other nations may burn the US flag daily, Americans focus on the condescension of one Japanese politician. This heightened sensitivity to the opinions of the Japanese may reflect a fear that the Japanese will deprive US citizens of the post-occupation status enjoyed for so long in this country. Americans enjoy Japanese deference to their customs, industries, culture, military influence, and civilian presence. During a year of living in Japanese homes, attending a Japanese high school, and struggling with traditions I still do not understand, I found that the Japanese populace holds Americans in high regard, even if that respect is not voiced by the political elite. Kiichiro, my host father while I lived and studied in Oita, Japan, is a fifty-two year-old kimono dealer who works long hours in a store bearing his family name and crest. In taking me into his house, he showed me a world that was at once foreign and familiar. He would drink whiskey and sing Beatles songs while his wife snickered at his every missed note, and we ate dried squid for snacks. One night, I asked Kiichiro why he had decided to take an American into his house, and as his drunkenness deepened, he told me about the post-war Japan that was his childhood. For him, there was none of the conflict that a sudden infusion of Western culture brought to an older generation. He watched John Wayne movies for entire days, played General MacArthur with his friends, and was not aware of the need to distinguish the new American country of the movies from his own Japanese