『2026 &TEAM CONCERT TOUR 'BLAZE THE WAY'』OFFICIAL MERCHANDISE 📅2026.03.27 12:00～2026.04.06 12:00(JST) 📍 #andTEAM# #ASIATOUR_BLAZETHEWAY# #BLAZETHEWAY_JAPAN# #MY_BLAZETHEWAY#

『2026 &TEAM CONCERT TOUR 'BLAZE THE WAY'』OFFICIAL MERCHANDISE 📅2026.03.10 12:00～2026.03.16 12:00(JST) 📍 #andTEAM# #ASIATOUR_BLAZETHEWAY# #BLAZETHEWAY_JAPAN# #MY_BLAZETHEWAY#

My cousin has trained beside American soldiers for nineteen years. He's a sergeant in Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force, which is, basically, our army. He's trained with your soldiers in Washington state, with your Marines in California, and with both of them at home in Japan. Last month, I asked him to ask the men in his unit one question. Forty of them answered. "What did the Americans teach you that isn't in any manual?" Japanese soldiers have a manual for everything. This was a hard question. "They sing while they run. Loudly. Badly. About things I will not translate for my mother." (Private first class, 23) "I gave a Marine a pickled plum. He made a face like he'd been shot. Then he asked for another one. Now his whole platoon calls me 'Plum.'" (Corporal, 26. California.) "In our army, a private does not ask an officer why. I watched an American private ask his captain why. The captain explained. The private had a better idea. They used it. I thought about that for a year." (Lieutenant, 29. Washington.) "Every night in the tents, they passed around photos of their kids like baseball cards. In three weeks, I learned the names of eleven American children. I have never met them. I still wonder how they're doing." (Sergeant first class, 38) "On Thanksgiving, an American sergeant took two of us home to his family. His grandmother sent us back to base with a plate for every man in our squad. Eleven plates. Foil on every one. Our commander wrote her a thank-you letter in very formal English. She wrote back, 'Anytime, sweetheart.'" (Private, 21. California.) Then my cousin asked the oldest man in the unit. The sergeant major. He's 54. Thirty-two years in uniform. In 1994, he was a 22-year-old private on the very first joint exercise in Washington state. On the second week, on a long march through the hills, he couldn't keep up. His legs were gone. He was about to fall out in front of the Americans, which for a young Japanese soldier is worse than dying. An American staff sergeant named Odell dropped back next to him, unbuckled his pack, and swung it onto his own shoulders. He carried two packs for six miles. He didn't say a word. At the end, the private tried to thank him, bowing, in terrible English. Odell looked confused. "What pack?" On the last day, Odell shook his hand and told him one thing. "Someday, you carry somebody's. That's how you pay me back." On New Year's Day 2024, a huge earthquake hit the Noto Peninsula. The sergeant major's unit went in. The roads were broken. Houses were down. Snow. He found an old woman, 86, sitting alone outside what had been her house. No way down but a road that wasn't a road anymore. He put her on his back and carried her three kilometers down the mountain. He says he could hear one voice in his head the whole way. In English. Last month, thirty years late, he tracked down Odell through some old exercise buddies. Retired. 61. South Dakota. He sent one message. He told him about the old woman. He told him he had finally paid him back. At three in the morning, Japan time, the reply came. "Told you, Private."

My coworker Takeshi spent a year in an Indiana town of 2,700 people. Last week, he let me scroll through his phone's search history from that year. It's the best thing I've ever read about America. WEEK 1 "is indiana safe" "why did my neighbor bring me a pie" "what did I do to deserve pie" "how to return a pie plate politely" WEEK 3 "is it rude not to wave back at every truck" "why is everyone waving" "do I know these people" MONTH 2 "why does an entire town go to a high school basketball game" "what is a hoosier" "nobody in indiana knows what a hoosier is" MONTH 3 "man asked how I'm doing, then waited for the answer. what do I do" "how to explain my whole life to a cashier" MONTH 5 "how to say no to a grandmother offering a third plate" "you cannot say no to a grandmother offering a third plate" MONTH 6 "neighbor mowed my lawn while I was at work. I did not ask. how to repay" "how to repay a man who refuses all repayment" "japanese gifts for a man named Wendell" MONTH 8 "is it normal to cry at a high school basketball game" "is it normal to cry at a high school basketball game if you do not know any of the players" MONTH 11 "how to say goodbye to americans" "why do americans say goodbye four times" "can you mail a basketball hoop to japan" LAST NIGHT IN INDIANA "how to tell a man who only says 'yep' that you will miss him" He never found the answer. So at the airport, he just bowed to Wendell. Wendell said, "Yep." Then he pulled Takeshi into a hug so hard his glasses went crooked, and said, very quietly, "Door's open, son." Takeshi has been home for six months now. These days, I asked, what does he search for? He turned his phone around. "new neighbor from overseas. how to make him feel welcome" A family from Peru moved in next to him in Tokyo last month. He brought them a pie. He had no idea how to make one. He searched that too.

My wife's cousin Reiko just retired after 34 years as a flight attendant for a Japanese airline. Most of those years were on flights to and from America. Japanese passengers are the quietest passengers on Earth. They do not talk to strangers. They do not press the call button, because that would be a bother. When the plane lands, they sit in silence and wait to be told they may stand. Reiko kept a small notebook in her apron pocket for 34 years. The title on the first page, in Japanese, is "Americans at 35,000 feet." I got to read it last week. Here are some pages. DALLAS "By the time we serve drinks, row 34 has shown each other pictures of their dogs. By the time we serve dinner, someone in row 34 has been invited to a wedding." CHICAGO "Three different men stood up to give a young soldier their first-class seat. They argued about it in the aisle. He was asleep in economy before they finished." HOUSTON "A baby would not stop crying. On a Japanese flight, everyone politely pretends nothing is happening. Here, a grandmother three rows back stood up, held out her arms, and said, 'Give him here, sugar. Go eat your dinner.' She walked that baby up and down the aisle for an hour. They had never met. When she gave him back, he was asleep and she was showing him pictures of her grandchildren." OHIO "A man pressed the call button at 3 a.m. I ran. He whispered, 'I just wanted to tell you you're doing a great job.' He was asleep again before I stood up. In 34 years, nobody else has ever pressed the call button to give me something." MONTANA "A cowboy lifted my bag into the overhead bin. I am the crew. He did it anyway. He said his mother would know if he didn't." NEW YORK "Every American thanks us at the door. All of them. One man from Texas shook the captain's hand and asked whether he was available for adoption." Then there's one flight that takes up eleven pages. Chicago to Tokyo. Four hours from landing. A Japanese grandfather, 80, in row 41, flying home from visiting his granddaughter, grabbed his chest and slumped into the aisle. Reiko got on the intercom and asked the question every flight attendant dreads. "Is there a doctor on board?" On a full Japanese flight, she says, that question is followed by a long, polite silence. Everyone hopes someone more qualified will stand up. On this flight, seven people stood up at once. An ER doctor from Chicago. A children's doctor from Atlanta. An ICU nurse from Ohio. A paramedic from Arizona. A retired Army medic, 78, who said, "Vietnam. I still remember." A veterinarian from Iowa, who said, "Technically I'm a horse doctor. But I'm here." And a plumber from Michigan. "I'm not anything," he told Reiko. "But I can hold stuff." For four hours, over the Pacific, they worked on him in the galley. The doctors kept him stable. The nurse ran the oxygen. The paramedic and the Army medic took turns. The veterinarian, a large man, held the IV bag over his head for two hours straight and refused to let anybody take a turn. And the plumber knelt on the galley floor beside the old man and held his hand. Not one word of Japanese. The old man had no English. So the plumber pulled up his photos and showed him fish. Walleye. Bass. A pike so big he had to show it twice. The old man, gray in the face, reached for his own phone and showed him his granddaughter. Then the plumber showed his grandkids. They traded pictures for four hours. On page nine, Reiko wrote one line that I keep coming back to: "The doctors kept his heart beating. The plumber kept him wanting it to." When the plane touched down in Tokyo, an ambulance was waiting at the gate. The old man was alive. And then three hundred passengers started clapping. The Americans started it. Reiko has heard Americans clap when a plane lands a thousand times. She always thought it was a little strange. The pilot can't hear it. The plane doesn't care. That night, after 34 years and something like four thousand landings, Reiko clapped too. The old man is 81 now. He's fine. This spring, he caught his first fish. Ever. He mailed a photo of it to Michigan. It's a very small fish. He sent it twice. America, I know half of you are embarrassed about clapping when the plane lands. Please don't stop. Reiko asked me to pass this along: the crew can hear you.

My friend Hanae is a linguist. She spent six years in western Kansas writing a dissertation that her professors in Tokyo still talk about. Its title: "The Grammar of the American Father." Here is the thing about Japanese. We have words that do far too much. "Sumimasen" can mean sorry, thank you, excuse me, and hello. Linguists love words like that. Hanae lived with a farm family outside a town of 1,100 people. Within a month, she realized the father of the house, Del, spoke an entire language built the same way. It was mostly one-syllable words. Each one carried about forty meanings. Nobody had ever written it down. So she did. Here are a few entries. WELL. At the start of a sentence: I am leaving in forty minutes. In the middle of a sentence: bad news is coming. Alone, with both hands slapped on both knees: this party is over. Everybody in America obeys this. Nobody has ever been told. WELP. Something has gone wrong. It cannot be undone. We are not going to talk about our feelings. We are going to get the truck. HOO BOY. Something is about to cost money. Said while looking at an engine, a receipt, or a daughter's prom dress. HUH. The highest praise a father can give a meal. One "huh" means good. Two means he is about to ask your mother to get the recipe from you. Hanae received two "huhs" for her curry. She describes it as the proudest moment of her academic career. WE'LL SEE. No. Except when it means yes. Nobody can tell until Christmas. OH, YOU DON'T WANNA DO THAT. You are about to do it wrong. He is now going to do it for you. It will take three hours. You will learn nothing. You will feel incredibly loved. THE SOUND. The noise an American man makes when he stands up after age forty. It is not pain. It is an announcement. Her chapter on "Well" alone was 61 pages. Her professors in Tokyo were confused. One of them asked her, in a very serious meeting, "Is it really possible for one syllable to carry an entire emotion?" Hanae said she wasn't sure yet. Then she came home. Six years. The whole family drove her to the airport in Wichita. Del didn't hug her. Del doesn't hug. He stood at security with his hands in his pockets. He looked at the floor. Then at the ceiling. Then at her. "Well," he said. And Hanae, after six years of research, understood every meaning at once. Last spring was her final defense, in Tokyo. Five professors. A small, very quiet room. Del had never been on a plane in his life. He was 74. He flew to Tokyo anyway. He described the flight as "a ways." He sat in the back row in his church jacket. He didn't understand a single word of the Japanese. At the end, the oldest professor asked her the same question again. "Can one syllable really carry an entire emotion?" He didn't understand the question. He understood her face. Before she could answer, Del stood up in the back row. Every head turned. He looked at the floor. Then at the ceiling. Then at her. "Well," he said. And he sat back down. Five Japanese professors with a combined 140 years of linguistics looked at each other. They passed her on the spot.