The Duke of Rebels

My friend Yumi has been a tour guide in Kyoto for nineteen years. Almost all of her groups are American. Every December, Kyoto's tour guides have a year-end party. There is one tradition. Everyone stands up and tells the story of their favorite American of the year. Then they vote. The winner gets a can of beer. This year, Yumi wrote them all down for me. "A man from Texas asked me what time the Imperial Palace closes. Then he asked if the Emperor was home. Then he asked if we could knock. He had brought a gift. Beef jerky. He said, 'You can't show up to a man's house empty-handed.'" (22 years guiding) "We don't accept tips in Japan. Americans cannot accept this. They hide money in my coat pocket. In my bag. One woman hid it in my hat while I was wearing it. This year, a man hid forty dollars inside my folded umbrella. On Tuesday it rained. Money fell on my head. I bought lunch for my whole office. We call it 'American rain' now." (17 years) "There are almost no public trash cans in Kyoto. A man from Michigan carried one candy wrapper in his pocket for three days, 'out of respect.' He apologized to me about the trash cans. As if it was his fault. On the last day, he handed me the wrapper. As a gift. I still have it." (9 years) "An old woman dropped a bag of oranges on the train platform. Eleven Americans got down on their knees and chased oranges across the station. The train left without them. The old woman missed her train too, because she stayed to direct them. She is now pen pals with a man from Alabama." (31 years) "At a temple garden, the monk asked for silence. Thirty Americans were completely silent for twenty minutes. I have never seen Americans be silent for twenty minutes. Then a grandmother from Iowa whispered, 'This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,' and all thirty of them started crying. Then the monk started crying. Monks are not supposed to cry. He said it was pollen." (14 years) "On the second day, a woman from Kentucky asked my children's names. I thought she was being polite. On the last day, she gave me an envelope with all three of their names in her handwriting, and a two-dollar bill for each one. 'For luck,' she said. My daughter is fourteen. She keeps hers in her phone case. She refuses to spend it. She says it's from America." (11 years) "A seven-year-old boy asked me if I was sad, because my job is saying goodbye to people every week. I said yes, a little. He reached into his backpack and gave me his rarest Pokémon card. His mother tried to give it back. He said, 'No. She needs it more.'" (6 years) "At the airport, my whole group of forty sang 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' to me in the arrivals hall. Loudly. Badly. Security came over. Then the security guard started clapping." (26 years) Then the oldest guide in the room stood up. Mr. Okada. 78. Fifty years of guiding. He never speaks at these. Yumi said the whole room went quiet. "In 1964, I was sixteen. Tokyo had the Olympics. My father told me I would never amount to anything. My English teacher sent me to the station to help foreign visitors, mostly to get me out of the house. The first person I ever helped was an American man. I was supposed to take him to his train. It took two hours. I got lost twice. He never got angry. He just laughed and said, 'Lead the way, partner.' On the platform, he asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I didn't know. Nobody had ever asked me. He shook my hand and said, 'Well, whatever it is, you're going to be great at it. I can tell.' I never saw him again. I don't know his name. For fifty years, every American I have guided, I have been trying to say thank you to that one man." Yumi said nobody clapped for a long time. Then everybody did. And they gave him the beer. So if you have ever been to Kyoto, and a tiny old man with a flag treated you like the most important person in the world, now you know why. He was saying thank you. It might have been to your grandfather. That's the thing about you, America. You say something kind to a lost kid in two minutes, and you forget it by dinner. And somewhere in Japan, someone is still carrying it. Fifty years later. So keep saying it.

There's a saying on American social media: "Be the American that Japanese people think you are." I'm Japanese. I've lived in Tokyo my whole life. So let me tell you what we actually say about you, when you're not in the room. "When someone falls down on the street, we pretend not to see. We're protecting their pride. Americans run straight at them. They don't care about the pride. They care about the knee." (Office worker, 38) "An American will stop four lanes of traffic for a family of ducks. And then everyone in the cars claps for the ducks." (Taxi driver, 61) "If you lend an American a pen, you will never see it again. If you need a kidney, they'll ask your blood type." (Nurse, 45) "At kids' soccer games, they cheer when the other team's kid scores. The other team's parents look confused. Then they cheer too." (Youth soccer coach, 52, lived one year in Ohio) "A man sneezed on a bus in Chicago. Eleven strangers said 'Bless you.' He said 'thank you' eleven times. Nobody on that bus thought this was strange." (University student, 21) "At an airport in Texas, I watched a soldier try to pay for his lunch. The cashier said someone already had. He asked who. She said, 'Somebody who didn't want you to know.'" (Retired teacher, 70) "American fathers cannot braid hair. But they will watch a video at midnight for an hour so their daughter's hair looks right on picture day." (Hair stylist, 33) "I ran the Chicago Marathon once. Strangers stood in the cold for hours holding signs for people they will never meet. At mile 20, a man I'd never seen read the name off my bib and screamed it like he'd raised me." (Runner, 48) "When Americans get lost, they ask a stranger. If the stranger is also lost, they become a team." (Tour guide, 39) "They ask the waitress her name. And then they remember it." (Restaurant owner, 66) And one more. From my father. He's 76. He doesn't say much about anything. This is the longest thing I have ever heard him say about another country. "Every time something terrible happens in America, I watch the news, and I look for one thing. The people running toward it. There are always so many." So, America. You don't have to become the Americans we think you are. We're not imagining you. We're remembering you.