Ernest Schaal wrote:

> Eric, don't fret about my education and experience.

I'm not worried at all.

> I was fortunate to get
> my three degrees and to have an emotionally and financially rewarding life
> in the law, and I have been luckier than most expats here in my
> circumstances here. Part of my success was due to my own efforts but a large
> part of it was due to the great woman I married and other fortunate
> circumstances, like a job offer in Gifu toward the end of my legal career.
> Right now, I am fortunate enough to be retired in Japan, with the money and
> time to spend traveling and doing other things that I like. I realize that I
> am a very lucky man.

You are retired?

> I am fortunate enough to know my limitations. One limitation is poor foreign
> language skills. I can converse in Japanese to Japanese who know no English,
> but I am under no illusions that my Japanese will ever be as good as many
> expats here. When I take the JLPT this December, I realize that many will
> have an easier time with the test. Believe it or not, the word "Masayuki"
> isn't on the wordlist for any grade of the JLPT (I checked).

First names will always be one problem for me. And I have not studied Japanese
since 1991.

> On the other hand, one advantage I have is the reasoning skills needed to
> recognized what is relevant to a topic, and what is not. I can recognize
> which things help prove or disprove a point, and which items are non
> sequiturs.
>
> For instance, in this thread, I noticed Yoshida's remark about Chinese and
> instantly recognized that he might be a bigot,

He probably is, but the point of my "bigotry" search and admission is, simply
being a bigot or practicing bigotry is not wrong, nor are stereotype or
generalization. Automobile manufacturers stereotype or generalize, when mass
producing cars. What, they don't realize there are very tall or fat people in
Japan? Or that some customers in Japan may WANT left hand drive vehicles? Or that
even as an option, they should offer a greater range of factory painted colors?

God and many notable figures of the Bible are bigots. The Pope is a bigot. Old
people in general are likely bigots. My relatives are bigots. This is no criticism
at all. I am not Catholic and do not agree with some Catholic teachings, but it
would be a grave error to change some of their ways or core beliefs, as it is
linked to their own infallibility or that of God.

Racist, on the other hand, is a much more serious charge, and probably completely
negative.

> so I asked for clarification
> and he gave it to me, in ways he did not expect. Rather than saying "NO,
> that is not what I meant about the Chinese," he proved himself a classic
> bigot by standing by his remarks, and when pressed resorting to attacks on
> my Japanese comprehension, cites to whole books (without pointing to the
> particular passage involved), and other things not germane to the issue.
> Because I was able to focus on the issue at hand, and not let myself get
> sidetracked by things that didn't bear on the issue I raised, I was
> successful in exposing him as a bigot. I don't think that he is the type of
> bigot that would drive a green truck or stab liberal politicians, but he
> does parrot the prejudices of an earlier time.
>
> By the way, I realize one other limitation of mine is that I take advantage
> of other people's weaknesses: Yoshida's pompous prejudice against the
> Chinese, your tendency toward exaggeration, or Raj's inferiority complex.
> That is not a positive character attribute, and I will work on it.

--
 "I'm on top of the world right now, because everyone's going to know that I can
shove more than three burgers in my mouth!"