The ignorance in the woodpile

I had a very interesting night yesterday.... It is literally going to blow your mind. But before that, I want to show you my new computer chair!!! It was only $30 and its perfect for using my pc, which is on the stupid, low, Japanese table. And the back is like a ratchet and is adjustable to 15 levels, so I can lay flat, recline, or use it like a chair! So happy.

So the title of my blog leads into my story. Last year when we bought electronic dictionaries for studying in Japan, everyone was looking through them looking for funny phrases. One memorable line was for the word F**k. "Where the ~~ is the hammer?" I thought it was really funny, but you might now. Anyway, for the word nigger, they have this line....

How does this lead into my main story? I will tell you........now. I was talking to a gentleman last night, who holds a position pretty high in the Board of Education. He was telling me that all the JETs who have come to Mombetsu have been Canadian. Why? Because they request Canadians. Why? Mombetsu`s sister city is Porland, Oregon so it would make sense that they might want Americans, NOPE and I quote "In Canada, no Negroes." This was followed by about 10 seconds of silence and then a "Im sorry, what did you just say?" moment. I didn`t hear him wrong. Thats what he said. Anyway, I went on to explain that there is just as good a chance to get a black person that to get a white person. It was really hard to convice him of Canada`s multi-culturalism. Shocking stuff about the pure ignorance that exists in many parts of Japan. Poor Japan.