Was it our second night in the hostel. It was in the evening. The night fell quickly and Paul and I biked back from the north-west corner of Central Kyoto, from Kinkakuji. We lied on our bunk-beds in silence, listing to the exhaustion of our bodies.
It wasn't long before Shawn woke up, or rather, it was the man soon to be known as Shawn. Paul was the first to talk to him. He introduced himself saying he was from Liverpool and then asked Shawn his name. He and his friend were from Singapore; Shawn had been studying in Japan for the last 2 years at a university in Tokyo; His friend Mitchel had just arrived from traveling in Korea.
At this time I opened my eyes and fell into conversation.
We talked bout our lives in Japan as different kinds of foreigners: those who look white and those who look oriential, and how this has affected out experiences. We also talked about how people act outside their cultures, and concentrated on Americans.
At this point Shawn thanked me for breaking his stereotype on Americans. He then explained what he meant. As a whole Americans who come to study in Japan are misguided in their actions. Shawn explained how the American students at his school act intolerably pompous about minuscule accomplishments; as an example he told me of one of his classmates that carries around the Nihon Shoki and reads from it in Japanese, not understanding what he is saying, and with a thick, indistinguishable accent. He also comented on the unhealthy obsessive behavior many have with anime, manga and video games. His biggest complaint is American's unfounded arrogance.
Why do we have so much arrogance? Or rather, why do we project feigned arrogance?
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