Before leaving for Japan, mother purchased me a backpack in the US equivalent of a recycle shop known as Goodwill for roughly $3 (347円, £1.50, R21.57). It's a nice enough bag and suits me fine except for the US Army logo emblazoned on the front of it. It's not that I don't respect the military. It's just that, well, quite frankly, I don't want to anger people before even having the chance to say "hello". Mother did her best to black out the logo before I left, but it was still visible to anyone who looked closely. Needless to say, I was eager to cover it up with something more.
Upon arriving at my desk in my school I dug around and examined the worksheets and paraphernalia left behind by previous instructors. My predecessor left behind a nice map of the UK and one of his predecessors left behind packs of Canadian flag stickers - a few of which happened to be large enough to cover the US Army logo on my bag. Without stopping to consider the consequences of my actions I swiftly pressed one of the stickers onto my bag. This seemed harmless enough. After all, Canada is a country with no natural predators.
Well, this afternoon I discovered what happens when people mistake you for someone from a friendly part of the world. They expect you to be friendly! While waiting for the train back to Fukui city from my school an elder Japanese woman noticed the sticker and shot off in what may be the fastest Japanese I've heard yet about what a wonderful and friendly place Canada is and how her daughter who is now 48 years old spent a semester there studying English long ago and how big the country is but oh it's such a beautiful country and it's so nice and friendly and you seem to understand Japanese so well but maybe there are many things you don't understand yet and my it must be nice to be from such a nice place as Canada I don't think it's as hot there as here but it's so nice......
And after all this incomprehensible one-sided conversation she gave me some candy.
Hooray for Canada!
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