I asked sixty Japanese people one question.
"If every American could hear you for ten seconds, what would you say?"
Here's what Japan wants you to know.
"Your dogs are too big. Please send one anyway." (Boy, 8)
"Please stop putting ice in everything. Also, never stop." (Housewife, 45, two years in Georgia)
"Your movies taught me that the nerd wins in the end. I am the nerd. Thank you for lying to me. It worked." (University student, 20)
"On my first day at our office in Indiana, my boss called me by my first name. I have worked for my boss in Tokyo for eleven years. I'm not sure he knows mine." (Engineer, 41)
"I learned English from Johnny Cash records. My English teacher was very confused." (Taxi driver, 66)
"In 1969, I watched you walk on the moon on a black-and-white TV in a noodle shop. When it happened, the owner stood up and said nobody was paying tonight. You did that for all of us." (Retired bus driver, 81)
"In Kansas, a man let me drive a combine bigger than my house. I did not crash it. Please tell him." (Rice farmer, 67)
"My son is autistic. At a restaurant in Missouri, he had a meltdown under our table. In Japan, people stare. There, the waitress got down on the floor next to him and said, 'Bad day, buddy? Me too.' She stayed down there until he came out. I never told her what that did for me. Somebody, please tell her." (Mother, 38)
"My wife was dying in a hospital in Seattle. One of her nurses came in on her day off, in her own clothes, to brush my wife's hair, because my wife had said she liked the way she did it. I did not know you could love a stranger like that." (Retired engineer, 74)
The youngest person I asked was my neighbor's daughter. She's seven. She watches the news with her grandfather every night.
She thought about it for a long time. Then, instead of an answer, she asked me a question.
"Is America okay?"
I asked her why she wanted to know.
"Because they help everybody," she said. "Who helps them?"
I didn't have an answer for her.
So I'll pass her question along, America.
You get asked for help all the time. Almost nobody asks you this.
Are you okay?
Whatever the answer is, sixty people in Japan want you to know:
we're in your corner.
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