Tuesday, May 23, 2006

小日本 ("Little Japan")

Uncle: How could you let Tom study abroad in Japan??? Do you know how many Chinese people were killed by the Japanese during World War II?

Mom: Well, Stanford only has this travel abroad program with Japan and Germany...

Uncle: Why didn't you have him go to Germany? After World War II, they got down on their knees and apologized to the Chinese! They offered to make reparations, and they paid a bunch of money for rebuilding! The Japanese have never admitted to any wrongdoing!

Mom: Well...

Uncle: Everybody in China is avoiding Japan and Japanese products right now! Su Jun [editor's note: his son, i.e. Niniane's cousin] used to drive Japanese cars when he was living in the US, but now that he's in China, he paid an extra 27000 RMB ($3500US) so that he can drive a non-Japanese car!

...

The above conversation was relayed to me by my mom yesterday, to my amusement.

Me: [to mom] So what is my uncle going to say when he finds out we're going to Japan on vacation?

Mom: We can't tell him that we're going for fun. We can only say that we're going to visit your brother.