One thing I was reminded of on my trip was that some countries don't consider themselves to be a part of any continent. Or rather when you mention the continent with which most people in the world would include them, it means something foreign to them, something other than themselves and their country. This seems to be most likely to happen in countries that are islands and so have a built in isolation. Given where I went, and the fact that some islands are their own continent and so have no isolation issue, can you guess which two countries I mean? And no looking at the category of the entry! That's cheating!

The answer is: The UK and Japan. Neither identifies with the closest continent, in this case Europe and Asia respectively. They need to travel to get there, in their minds.

I never knew Japan felt this way. I think this is partly because America has a closer affinity with England, since we used to be a colony and still speak English etc. The East Coast is closer to England geographically too, but here in California we're about equadistant. So that shouldn't be a factor.

It came up when I was in a toy store with Mihoko-san and we noticed a model set. They had one series that was different room styles, and it included both a Japanese one and a general Asian one. I was a little puzzled by this, partly because "Asia" is so huge and has many different styles, but mostly because when American think of Asian style they think of East and South-East Asia, including Japan and China. Think about it - in America we wouldn't have separate "American" and "North American" model sets. But that's another topic.

Mihoko-san explained that when Japanese people thought of Asia they thought of South-East Asia mostly, and China perhaps. So having a set for Japan and one more generally Asian made sense.

Perhaps it is because Japan is part of that region of the world and so can see finer gradations than we do on this side of the Pacific. I must admit that as a child I couldn't distinguish between the spoken Chinese and Japanese languages at all, and I still can't reliably tell the difference between Korean and Japanese speech. There are still many Asian languages that are just that to me- Asian. Broadly lumped together. Terible but true.

It is like some British actors (the bad ones) who sound like they are from Texas when they try to have an American accent. Something about over compen-sating for their natural tendancy to drop the final "r". To their ears, they sound American. To mine, they sound Texan, and not like American actors, who have the "network news" accent. No real regional overtones at all.

Another example of the American bias toward Europe is this - most Americans i bet can tell the difference between spoken Spanish, German and French, even if they don't speak any of them or can even indentify what they are. They can tell they are different. Most Americans, I'd wager, can't do the same for Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese. Take out Vietnamese and make it Korean and it gets even harder.

Mihoko-san, of course, can easily distinguish Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and no doubt Spanish, German and French too, though we didn't discuss it and I don't know if they blend into "European" for the average Japanese citizen.

So perhaps we in America make "Asia" mostly China and Japan, and maybe Korea and Vietnam, with India its own sub-continent. We forget about Laos and Bangladesh and Tibet and Russian Siberia and Kyrgyztan and all the rest of the continent. Since the break-up of the U.S.S.R that continent has so many more countries (though of course the cultures were there all along). When did any of us last look at a map of Asia anyway?

Well it is so late it is already tomorrow (well, it is always "now", but you understand) so I will finish up examining this part of the Japanese psyche tomorrow. I'm behind schedule because I went to the Maroon 5 concert tonight. Had a blast, but it did take up writing time. Off to much needed rest.