Things I've overheard American tourists say in Japan this month: At a traditional inn in Kyoto: "There are special slippers just for the bathroom. I wore the bathroom slippers into the dining room. The grandmother made a sound I will never forget." On a Tokyo train at 8 a.m.: "Nobody is talking. Nobody. I'm whispering, and I'm still the loudest thing in this city." At a ramen shop: "Wait. You're SUPPOSED to slurp? My mother spent eighteen years telling me not to. I'm calling her. I'm calling her right now." In a department store food hall: "That melon costs a hundred and fifty dollars. Who is this melon? What has it done?" On a street in Osaka: "There are no trash cans anywhere in this entire country, and it's the cleanest place I've ever been. I've been carrying this empty can since breakfast. We're close now." On the bullet train: "Babe. The seats turn around. The whole row just spun. I thought it was a ride. I clapped." On the subway: "That little girl is riding the subway by herself. She's maybe six. Her backpack is bigger than she is. She just gave me directions." And then there's the one I didn't overhear. I just watched it. At Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto, there are always school groups. Japanese kids on field trips have a famous assignment: find a foreign tourist and interview them in English. They carry little notebooks with ten questions written out. Most of them are terrified. A boy, maybe eleven, walked up to a huge American man in a Texas Rangers cap. He held up his notebook. His friends hung back behind him, giggling. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His face went red. His friends laughed harder. He looked like he wanted the temple to swallow him. The man didn't laugh. He got down on one knee, right there on the stone steps, so his eyes were level with the boy's. And he said, very gently: "Take your time, buddy. I got all day." The boy read the first question. One word at a time. "Where. Are. You. From?" "Texas!" the man said, like it was the best question anyone had ever asked him. He answered all ten. Slowly. Clearly. Favorite food: "Brisket. And now, ramen." Favorite thing about Japan: "Kids who are brave enough to do this." Then he asked the boy one question back, in Japanese so bad I almost laughed out loud. "Namae wa?" Your name? The boy told him. The man repeated it twice until he got it right. Then he signed the notebook, shook the boy's hand like they had just closed a business deal, and said: "You know what, man? I couldn't do this in Japanese. You're braver than me." Then he turned around and yelled, "Y'all, get over here!" And his wife and their three kids lined up behind him on the temple steps, one by one, to be interviewed too. That boy walked back to his class with five interviews. More than anybody. His teacher bowed to the man. The man bowed back, too deep, and his cap fell off. As the boys walked away, I heard the shy one whisper to his friend, in Japanese: "Americans are so kind." He said it like he'd just found out something about the world. I've watched a thousand school trips at that temple. I've never seen a kid walk down those steps standing that tall.

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