Prejudice

The young couple in the elevator with me had on enormous backpacks. They were tall – both of them easily over six feet – and blonde. When I asked them where they were from they said West Germany. They were on their honeymoon, the woman told me. Both of them were newly qualified doctors who hoped to volunteer for Medicins sans Frontieres and they had just been on a tour of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They had visited the Peace Park and met with Japanese doctors who had treated patients with radiation sickness.

The more I talked with this couple, the more impressed I was. As important as it is, the Peace Park in Hiroshima is the last place most people would want to visit on their honeymoon. They were on their way to Vietnam, and their final destination was Cambodia. They had worked for Amnesty International, of which they were both members, as well as various other humanitarian organizations. They were young and idealistic, compassionate and – amazingly enough, considering all their accomplishments and the fact that they were doctors – humble.

After checking in, we sat down and waited in the reception area, as we were a bit early. A young Japanese teenager joined us and asked us where we were from. ‘America,’ I said, and she nodded. She knew America, of course. She had been to Los Angeles. She’d liked Disneyland so well that she’d been there twice in one week. She then asked the young couple where they were from. ‘West Germany,’ answered the wife with a smile. The Japanese girl nodded, then saluted smartly: Heil Hitler! she cried cheerfully, beaming at us.

All three of us knew that she didn’t mean any harm by this: she was just young and silly and almost heartbreakingly innocent in her wholly unintentional cruelty. But it was an excruciating moment. The young woman left soon after this, and there was a short, awkward silence.

‘Wherever we go, we take it with us,’ remarked the wife quietly. ‘Our country's past. The War. It is our constant companion.”

There was nothing I could say to this. Given their height, their extreme blondness and their strong German accents, when we first met, I too had thought -- however fleetingly -- of Hitler's Germany. I just had more sense than to say Heil Hitler.

I have thought of that young couple often, over the years. With all their good work and high ideals, they had the bad fortune to come from a country with a dreadful past -- one which few people are not well aware of. I have often thought with shame about my reaction to Germans: Wonder what they think about the war? Wonder if their parents were Nazis? and how that reaction, whether I like it or not, is based on prejudice.

I ought to know better. While I don't think America's evil empire has come close to Nazi Germany's, my country has certainly been responsible for atrocities and a misuse of power, and as an American I resent being stereotyped as racist, shallow and xenophobic. I'm tired of being questioned about my politics and my social awareness, and I know that people whose countries have a troubled past must feel the same. But when I hear a German accent, the Second World War invariably springs to mind. I have a veneer of politeness -- unlike that young girl I'm not gauche, ignorant, or callously honest -- but deep down inside, I too judge others on their outward appearance, the way they speak. I try to suppress this, but I find myself doing it anyway. And I know I'm not alone. I'm not prejudiced! I've heard so many people say whenever the subject comes up. I know what they mean, but I wonder if they really know what they're saying.

Virtually all of us born in this day and age have learned to pre-judge others. Like it or not, prejudice is part of our human condition. It is so easy to categorize people by accent, nationality, clothing, skin color, class, occupation, choice of words -- you name it. We don't have to be Nazis or card-carrying Klan members; we all have this in us to some degree.

But acknowledging the problem is the first step towards getting rid of it.

Girls And Boys and Boys and Girls

The other day my youngest reported that she had talked to a boy in her class on the way home from school. "He's really nice," she burbled. "Not like a boy at all."

This sort of comment from her always amazes me. I'm not given to kneejerk anti-male statements. I've almost never indulged in the Women are smart, men are stupid cracks that some women are prone to make, and I have always tried to treat the whole gender issue as fairly and reasonably as possible. I make a big fuss about how happy I am to have daughters, but I know that if I'd had sons I'd have loved them as tenderly and deeply as I love my girls. A lot of the boys in our neighborhood strike me as being pleasant, and I've always encouraged my daughters to make friends with boys and girls. And yet they both have this Ewww, boys! attitude. Why?

I am convinced there is a natural antipathy to boys, particularly among girls who have grown up without brothers, and always when girls sense they are being treated as second class citizens. I was one of three girls myself, and my sisters and I feared and loathed boys beyond reason -- even, at times, our two cousins who lived next door. We had learned several things by the time we entered elementary school:

1) Boys were mean. They tended to tease animals and others mercilessly.

2) Boys generally got away with it. I used to grind my teeth in anger and frustration when I heard my aunt's indulgent "Boys will be boys" response to some broken toy or other gross insult. My cousins' grinning Nyah, nyah, nyah hardly helped.

3) Boys were greedy and never shared. They were also, on occasion, served more food. Because they were boys.

4) Boys made fun of things we held dear. Our dolls and stuffed animals were scorned and savaged. Cute clothes we prized were scoffed and ruined when they kicked mud at us.

5) Boys tried to hold us back. We couldn't climb into their tree houses because we were girls. They wouldn't let us play in their games, and they mocked ours when we started them. Infuriatingly, though, they often tried to poach on what they viewed as our territory. I'll never forget a smug neighbor telling me that he had made brownies. That he might grow up to be a cook some day, better than any woman. Because as everyone knew, men were the most famous chefs. Ooh, that one rankled.

Once, on my way back from school, a boy stopped me. "Hold out your hand," he demanded imperiously.

I was too smart for that, of course, and refused to do this. "You'll hurt me."

"I will not!" the boy protested.

"Promise!" I said, and the boy promised.

Once he'd made that promise, I was fine. I knew that if you broke a promise, God saw. Looking down from heaven, God would frown and smite anyone who broke his word. In perfect trust, I extended my hand. The boy seized it in his own grubby paw.

Starting with my thumb, the boy began to count, working his way down my fingers: "Davey -- Crockett -- never -- said -- "

"Ouch!" I screamed, as the boy bent my pinky all the way back.

Well pleased, the little shit ran off laughing. Trivial though this incident might seem, it made a huge impression on me: Don't trust boys.

I could end here, in which case you would think that our hatred of boys wasn't really beyond reason; plenty of them obviously earned it. But to this day, I remember another incident with equal clarity.

I was perhaps seven years old, my older sister ten and my younger sister just six. We were walking along a dusty road, on our way back from the store with a jar of pickles we had been sent to buy. A boy about my older sister's age stopped us.

"Hello," he said. We nodded and eyed him warily.

"Want some candy?" the boy asked.

My sisters and I traded glances. We knew all about the candy ruse, but this boy was a boy, after all -- not an adult with a car.

"What kind?" my older sister bravely asked.

The boy was carrying a paper sack we viewed with deep suspicion. What might it have inside? A fake cockroach like our cousins had? Rubber chocolates? A plastic snake?

Reaching into the bag, the boy extracted three mint patties. Not the small kind you sometimes get after a meal at restaurants, but great, huge patties as big around as a teacup. Our jaws dropped.

"Thank you," my older sister breathed. My younger sister and I chorused our own thanks, still wary, and the boy went on his way.

"Do you think they're poison?" my little sister whispered.

My older sister shook her head. "They're wrapped too well," she pointed out.

We saw that this was true: the patties were obviously still perfectly sealed. We unwrapped them and began to eat. They were delicious, and we didn't drop dead.

Five minutes later, as we licked the candy off our lips and carefully folded up the wrappers and tucked them into our pockets, my older sister shook her head in amazement. "I guess some boys are good," she said.

Honestly, it was a revelation. And she was absolutely right.

The Matushka

“You’re not the only American member here,” said the receptionist at the YWCA. “Mrs Hashimoto uses our swimming pool regularly. Perhaps you’ll get to know her; she’s about your age.”

I smiled. You hear dopey comments like this all the time in Japan. Such as “You’ll just love our neighbor – she’s an American too!” As if a shared nationality is a sure-fire basis for friendship.

“I suppose she’s another English teacher,” I commented, handing back my completed registration form. In Japan, it is rare to find a resident American who doesn’t teach English.

“I’m not sure,” said the receptionist, “but I know she is a clergyman’s wife.”

A clergyman’s wife? Immediately I pictured a smug, sensible woman spouting Christian platitudes and oozing respectability. I made a mental note to avoid her at all costs.

Although I kept my eye out for the clergyman’s wife, I never spotted her. In fact, there were practically no non-Asian foreigners there at all. Then one day in the changing room I noticed a woman about my age with wispy light blonde hair, her jaws working furiously on a piece of chewing gum. When I heard her curse as she dropped something on the floor, I felt pretty sure she was an American. On one foot she sported a cast that was obviously weeks old. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she struggled to thread her casted foot through her trouser leg. She had a certain off-putting, un-American look about her that seemed to suggest she wasn’t given to quick conversations and easy camaraderie. When she shrugged on her black leather jacket with its Harley-Davidson patch on the sleeve and slid on her shades, if I’d had to guess her occupation, ‘Hell’s Angel’ would have been at the top of the list. When I saw her in the parking lot a week later, climbing off her Hog, I was further convinced.

Two days later an elderly lady in the changing room did a double take upon seeing me and threw up her hands. “My! Your leg is healed!” she cried out in Japanese. I was taken aback by this: I had pulled a muscle two weeks previously, but I didn’t remember telling anyone about it.

“It wasn’t all that bad,” I assured her, but she continued to shake her head in astonishment. “But that cast you were wearing!” she countered, staring at my leg in wonder, and I suddenly realized the source of her confusion. I was a good five inches taller than the Hell’s Angel, with darker, shorter hair, but this lady obviously had little experience with Caucasians and she’d gotten us mixed up. The next time I ran into the blonde with the cast, I worked up the courage to tell her that someone had mistaken me for her.

She let out a hoot of laughter. “Well I’m flattered,” she said dryly, “but I hope it didn’t ruin your day.” Which was how Jenny and I met. Jenny’s husband was Japanese, and she taught English at a local university. Although we were roughly the same age, Jenny had married at eighteen and had a grown-up son and grandchildren back in the States. She hardly seemed like the grandmother type to me, and I couldn’t picture her in front of a classroom either. When I asked her about the motorcycle she shrugged. “We can’t afford a car.”

It turned out that the dark glasses, which I seldom saw Jenny without, were on account of her diabetes. “I’ve had it all my life,” she confided. “I wear the shades to protect my eyes. Diabetic retinopathy, you know.”

“We live in a fish-bowl,” Jenny complained one day. “Right smack in the middle of the Cathedral complex. Everybody knows everybody else, and you can’t do anything without everybody else finding out about it.” We’d been talking about housing and how hard it was to find a decent apartment in Tokyo. Somehow I pictured Jenny and her Japanese husband in a small, stylish flat with trendy furniture and parking space for both their Harleys. During the course of an earlier conversation she’d mentioned a class on the Byzantine Empire he was teaching, and I pictured a bookish, intellectual fellow – albeit in motorcyclist’s black leather.

When I asked Jenny how she’d managed to find housing in the middle of the cathedral complex, she laughed. “Oh gosh. Didn’t I tell you? My husband’s an orthodox priest.”

All I could do was stare at her – Jenny Hashimoto, the clergyman’s wife. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a comfortable-looking woman with a crucifix around her neck was laughing her head off.

Takes all Kinds

With his dumpy figure, low forehead, and grunted monosyllabic replies to all my questions, the used furniture store's delivery man did not inspire confidence. His swarthy, unhandsome face wore a perpetual scowl, and moreover I had frequently seen him around town looking as though he didn't have a clue about what to do next. The day he showed up at our door with the baby bed we had ordered, I knew he would be no help at all in getting it set up, but I decided to ask him anyway. Maybe he'd have an idea where to start, and I could take it from there.

"Um, I don't know how to set it up," I hazarded. He screwed up his face and glanced despairingly at his watch.

"Are there any instructions?" I asked him next. He grunted what I took to be a yes affirmative reply and pulled several mimeographed sheets written in Japanese out of his back pocket. My heart sank: I can follow most Japanese manuals pretty well, but these were not in normal Japanese; they were in engineer's gobbledegook. There were diagrams with cogs and arrows and parts labeled with numbers and letters of the alphabet; there were twirly lines, broken lines and solid lines, and I could have no more have used this to assemble the bed than I could have flown to the moon. I had a sudden nasty recollection of the bizarre 35% I'd once scored in a mechanical reasoning test, even though I'd answered each and every question to the best of my ability.

"I really hate to have to ask you this, but do you think you could give me a hand putting it together?" I asked him in my politest Japanese, my fingers crossed.

Taking the papers back, he managed to stifle a sigh, furrowing his brow as he read. Then he reached into a pocket and pulled out a screw driver. In less than ten minutes, he had assembled the entire bed. He never once made a wrong move.

I have a master's degree from a reasonable university. I can speak, read and write Japanese, and I have read -- and even understood -- most of Dostoyevsky. And I give you my solemn word that if I'd had to assemble that baby bed, I'd still be at it now.

Watching that man do his job was sheer pleasure. He would glance at the instruction sheet, then extract the right screw, bolt or whatever, and attach one bit to the next with amazing dexterity. He didn't swear, sweat, or scratch his head once, and he kept on working until he had turned a pile of junk into a sturdy, useful piece of furniture. I felt like applauding and putting a wreath around his neck, but I didn't. I offered him a tip instead, but he shook his head and grunted. Then he got into his truck and went off on another delivery. And I stood there, disgusted with myself for having prejudged this man and marveling at the wonderful diversity of human talent.