Japanese voice actress Hazuki Tanda painted her face black for a Shaun the Sheep costume and posed with a banana and vegetables. Foreign users called it blackface and pointed to the banana as a racial stereotype. Japanese users pushed back, saying Shaun’s face is black in the original design and she was just recreating the character. Once the photos left Japan, the argument was already locked in.

My coworker Nomura's son Haruki was eleven when the family moved to a small town in Virginia for a year. Before they left, Haruki's mother warned him to be careful. Americans could be rude. She had seen it on the news. Haruki didn't believe her. So he made a bet. He bought a tally counter. The little metal clicker that traffic surveyors use to count cars. Every time an American did something kind for a stranger, he would click it. His mother bought one too. Hers was for every time an American was rude. Loser washes the dishes for a month. Last week, Nomura showed me Haruki's notebook. Haruki had sorted his clicks into categories, because he is the son of an engineer. Called me "buddy," "bud," "little man," or "my man": 311 Said "Have a good one" to someone they did not know: 446 (Haruki's note: I still do not know what the "one" is. I stopped asking. I just have it now.) Dogs introduced to me by name: 58 Dogs introduced by FULL name, including middle name: 6 ("This is Rosie Marie. Say hi, Rosie Marie.") Asked if we were lost (we were not lost): 17 Asked if we were lost (we were lost): 4 Said "Just follow me" and drove five miles out of their way: 4 out of 4 Old ladies who told my mother my eyelashes were "wasted on a boy": 9 (I do not know what this means. My mother was very proud.) People on the pier who clapped when I caught a fish: 23 Size of fish: 4 inches (They clapped anyway. One man took a picture. He was not my dad.) Mrs. Patterson, my teacher, said "Good morning, Haruki" at the classroom door: 180 Number of school days: 180 Final count, the day they flew home: 1,427. Then Haruki asked his mother for her counter. She didn't want to give it to him. When she finally did, the little window said: 0 Haruki asked if she had forgotten to use it. She said no. She had clicked it once. In the first week, at a grocery store, she was slow counting out her coins at the register, and the man behind her sighed loudly and said, "Come on, lady." She clicked. She was almost glad. Finally. Proof. Ten minutes later, the same man found her in the parking lot. He had been looking for her. He said he was sorry. He'd had a bad morning, and that was no excuse, and could he please carry her bags to the car. That night, she sat at the kitchen table and figured out how to make the counter go backwards. Nomura says his wife washed the dishes for a month without complaining once. Haruki's counter still sits on his desk in Tokyo. It doesn't say 1,427 anymore. His mother borrowed it. There's an American family two floors down from them now. She's been counting. She's at 31.

Congratulations to Portia, Haruki, Era, Sheldon & Joshua on their graduation! We’ll miss you all and wish you the very best in your next chapters! Haruki & Joshua are expected to continue on to the PhD program. 🌸 #GodaLab# #Graduation#

“I'm a coward when it comes to matters of the heart. That is my fatal flaw.” - Haruki Murakami Haruki Murakami, born in Japan in 1949, is a celebrated novelist known for blending everyday life with dreamlike and surreal elements. His writing often explores loneliness, memory, love, identity, loss, and the search for meaning. Through his distinctive storytelling style, Murakami has become an influential figure in contemporary literature, with his works translated and widely read throughout the world. The quote reflects the vulnerability and fear that can come with truly loving someone. Murakami suggests that a person may be courageous in many areas of life yet struggle when emotions become deeply personal. Loving someone means opening yourself to rejection, heartbreak, and loss, and that vulnerability can make it difficult to express what you genuinely feel. By describing this fear as a “fatal flaw,” he suggests that it is more than a minor weakness. Fear can prevent someone from saying what is in their heart or pursuing the relationship they truly want. The quote captures a deeply human contradiction: sometimes the person we care about most is also the person we are most afraid to be vulnerable with, because their ability to hurt us matters more than anyone else’s.