Still a soft spot for Japan

The world remembers them for their atrocities. Investors hate them for their puny interest rates. Their own people call their leaders as the puppets (sometimes puppy) of Bush. And I am always disgusted by their try-hard interpretation of American style. However, one thing that most, if not all, can agree on is that the Japanese are the most polite and well mannered people in the world!

And this reason alone can make me speak for hours about the country.

I helped a Japanese locate her husband not too long ago. Mrs Matsukawa insisted that I gave her my address and I did.

Today she sent me a letter. I remember she couldn't speak a word of English and that's why I ended up helping her.

Letter from Mrs Matsukawa

When I opened the letter, she wrote to me in English! I know the one-page letter is not a great deal to many of us but for someone who couldn't speak a word of English except "yes" and "no", that's truly remarkable!

I remember when I was studying in Japan and given the assignment to write a letter in Japanese to our lecturer, it took me half an hour to come up with one meaningful sentence, 5 hours to cover half a page and the next day to finish a page. After that, a few more hours to be corrected by our Japanese "buddies". That was also when we know more than "yes" and "no"!

So when I read her letter, I was very touched. It was no mean feat for her to come up with that. Her English was appalling but that's not important. The most important thing in language is to get the message across and it wasn't impossible to make up the entire content of the letter.

She enclosed photos of her trip and then invited me to Osaka for a visit. As if sensing I would visit Niigata or skip Osaka for other places like Tokyo and Kyoto even if I made a trip to Japan, she listed alternative plans like coming up to meet me in Niigata or Tokyo if I hadn't thought about visiting Osaka.

Mrs Matsukawa and hubby in London

Now anyone who's not gullible would not buy this so-called "invitation". I would just brush it off as a gesture of thanks in the form of invitation out of courtesy instead of taking it real.

However, when she listed alternatives, and explained about the ways she could drop by to see me in Niigata or Tokyo without having me to go to her, that's really something else!

She reminded me of my host mother. She reminded me about all the nice Japanese people I met when I was studying in the country. She reminded me of going back there.

Now I must keep reading the first four sentences that I started this article with to keep myself in check and from getting too carried away. I hate to admit it but I still have a soft spot for Japan.