The Astro-Knight ✝️ 🇺🇸👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

I'm Japanese. I live in Tokyo. I have never been to America. For the past month, I've been writing stories here about Americans. Some of you laughed. A lot of you cried. Some of you asked me if they were true. Honest answer: they're inspired by real moments. I change names and details. But this post is different. Every word of this one is true. Because this one is about you. Thousands of you replied to those stories. I read them late at night in my apartment in Tokyo, one by one. And somewhere along the way, I realized something. You were telling me better stories than I was telling you. Here are some of the things Americans told a stranger in Japan this month. A pilot told me he once helped shut down an entire airport so a mother duck and her six babies could cross the runway. He coordinated with air traffic control. For ducks. He told me like it was a normal Tuesday. A father told me he has four daughters, and one of them is walking around with his left kidney. That was the whole reply. Eleven words. Like a fun fact. A woman told me she was rescued from a hurricane by strangers in their own boats. Nobody called them. They just came. All she wrote was: "God bless people with boats." A soldier told me he once sat down for lunch at the Dallas airport in uniform. One stranger bought his table a round. Another bought their lunch. A third bought another round. He never found out who any of them were. A man from Brazil told me he was once filming a video about how kind Americans are. In the middle of filming, a stranger walked up and offered him a beer. A woman told me that Dolly Parton's father couldn't read. So Dolly grew up and started sending free books to children. A woman corrected me. I had written that American dads can't braid hair. She told me her father braided hers every single morning, all through elementary school. She was right. I have never been so happy to be wrong. A man told me that at the Boston Marathon, the crowds thin out near the end, but somebody always stays until the very last runner goes by. A woman told me her mother had Alzheimer's. For years, her father told her mother the story of their life together, over and over, so she wouldn't lose it. And a woman told me that just today, she was too tired to lift something into the trunk of her car. A young couple walked by. She asked. The young man helped. Just today. You also made me laugh until I couldn't breathe. I asked for the most American sentence in five words. You gave me "Hold my beer. Watch this." You gave me "That's not enough ranch." One woman broke the rules and wrote, "How about three? God Bless America." Nobody complained. Not one American said, "That's only three." One woman reports her tissue count on every story. "OK, that's three tissues so far today." Then, on the next one: "Four. Dang." One man told me, "I'm never deleting this app." One woman said Japanese people are a blessing, and she will personally "have words" with anyone who says otherwise. I have never felt so safe in my life. One of you called me "Sensei." I'm not a teacher. You are. And one woman told me that she has actually said, out loud, in real life: "There's a bald eagle sitting on my truck." Here's what I noticed. Almost none of you told me about yourselves. You told me about your father. A stranger with a boat. A pilot. The people who stayed for the last runner. The young man at the trunk. And the few of you who did the good thing yourselves? You told it like it was nothing. You gave away a kidney and described it in eleven words. You are a country that remembers every kind thing anyone ever did for you, and forgets every kind thing you ever did yourself. So I'll remember them for you. A lot of you wrote some version of the same sentence. "I needed this." "It's hard to be an American right now." "I don't know if we're still good." One woman wrote to me late at night. She couldn't sleep. She had been reading all the awful news. She said she might be a little discouraged, but she will never stop being an American who loves her country. Another woman told me she cries after every story. She thinks it's because she's carrying old grief. Then she wrote, "I guess that means I'm alive." I read that one at 3 a.m. in Tokyo. And I cried too. I started writing these stories to cheer you up. I never expected you to cheer me up. So, thank you. To the pilot who stopped an airport. To the dad with one kidney. To the people with boats. To the strangers at the Dallas airport. To the dad who braided hair before work. To the ones who stay for the last runner. To the husband who kept telling the story. To the young man at the trunk. To the woman counting tissues. To the woman who can't sleep and still loves her country. To the bald eagle on the truck. Thank you. And to everyone who asked me if Americans are still good: I'm Japanese. I've never been to America. I'm not the right person to answer that. But I know who is. Scroll down. That's America.