Full Circle

When my husband and I first met, we were colleagues, teaching in a large British English school in Tokyo. At first, I knew little about him other than his first name and the fact that he got bad sunburns when he played cricket.

One day, I was at my desk, marking papers in our large staffroom when a student came in to ask him a question about her composition. He had marked a phrase incorrect and she wondered why.

"Because it's wrong," he said.

"But my dictionary says it's right," she protested.

"What dictionary is that?"

"Webster's."

"Ha!" he scoffed. "No wonder. That's an American dictionary and an American phrase -- and this is a British school! Next time use a British dictionary." He made a deprecatory little gesture to go with every use of American. I gritted my teeth and turned back to my papers. This wasn't the first time a colleague had dissed my country and I was pretty sure it wouldn't be the last.

After the student left, my husband got up to leave too. His desk was around a corner, out of my sight, but as soon as he saw me sitting there, he froze. "Oh!" he said. "I thought I was the only one here!"

"Mmm," I replied, not looking up.

Later that day, I was walking past his desk when he stopped me. "I want to apologize for what I said earlier," he said. "I was going for a cheap laugh and I'm ashamed you overheard. I'm genuinely sorry; I meant no disrespect."

"That's okay," I told him. "I'm used to it."

"But you shouldn't be!" he said. "It's just wrong -- I was wrong. Anyway, I'm sorry."

I was amazed: after ten years of enduring jokes about stupid, spoiled, fat, over-privileged, filthy rich Americans, it was the first time anybody had apologized for a mere gaffe. And what he'd said hadn't even been all that offensive, considering.

After this incident, we got to know each other. I learned that he was good at putting his foot in his mouth, but almost always contrite afterwards; he learned that I too was prone to speaking first and thinking later. Eventually, I was bowled over by his strong sense of justice and integrity; he liked the fact that I had learned Japanese and marched to the beat of my own drum.

Over twenty years of marriage later, we've had plenty of experiences hearing our respective countries trashed. We both wince when comedy routines open with gratuitous Aren't Americans stupid? jokes; we both bristle when we hear people condemn the British as xenophobic, classist snobs.

My Kazakh students used to complain about Sacha Baron Cohen's fictional Borat and his unfair treatment of their country. It infuriated them that Kazakhstan was made to look like a nation of illiterate, uncultured, anti-Semitic boors. "It is wrong for him to say these things about our country!" they used to protest. "Why doesn't he say them about Kyrgyzstan instead?" I used to tell them that when Kyrgyzstan got as wealthy and popular as Kazakhstan, they would get joked about too. Just like the U.S. and the U.K.

My husband now works with a diverse, cosmopolitan group of teachers from all over the world. The other day, one of his new colleagues began telling the staffroom her opinion of Americans and their accents. "They all sound so foolish!" she said. "Like they're sucking on marbles!" My husband listened for as long as he could stand it, then finally held up his hand. "I guess you don't know that my wife is American," he said.

Let's hope she too meets an American one day. And falls in love...