"American" and "Gai-jin" Are NOT Always The Same...It Turns Out

*faithfully transcribed from my pink notebook:

Date Written: August 17th

Despite our efforts to the contrary, Ming and I have fallen victim to that good ole American egotism. Throughout our week's travel around Japan, we saw a good bunch of gaijin (foreigners). And we would see them from far off and I would think, "Hah. Poor Americans. They go everywhere and expect others to speak THEIR language instead of trying to learn the language and ways of their host country. Shame. Americans think they rule the world as individuals and that's why no one really likes America (on top of politics)."

[Edit: I'm really grateful to America and represented them proudly for karate. As with everything though, there are also negative aspects that you cannot ignore. My thoughts and conclusions in this post might not be universal, but something very real I've seen throughout my experiences over and over again. And it's true, a lot of countries don't like us, as I've seen first-hand while traveling with the US Team. Reality.]

And then we got close enough to realize they were Italians.

Assumption fail.

Note to self: you cannot just assume every White person is American. There are indeed other countries they could be from.

Speaking of, that entire week was one big Spanish-win. There were SO many Spaniards everywhere and I would creepily eavesdrop on every stranger's conversation to see if I could butt in and make friends. What really depressed me though, is that I realized I can't form sentences in Italian or Portuguese anymore because I think in Japanese instead!