On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 02:15:14 +0900, "Hibijibi" <km34@columbia.edu>
wrote:

>"Ed"  wrote in message ...
>> Anyway, thanks to all of you for your understanding. No, I don't plan on
>> leaving everything behind anymore. It's just that I'd like to keep that
>> option open. Sometimes it needs to be more open than the bank that holds
>my
>> mortgage would consider appropriate.

>Man, I went away for a few days and missed this great thread.  Head hits the
>nail on the Ed.

>However, let's not forget samaritan americans' family culture.  So busy
>sacrificing themselves for others, they forget to take care of themselves
>and their own flesh and blood:  parents disowning/kicking their kids out of
>home (or vice-versa), all the fuck-the-children divorces and lousy
>step-parenting, the tendency of people to live as absolutely far from their
>parents as possible, the culture where "housewife" is a perjorative term,
>the non-functioning extended family, and the desire of elderly parents to
>live in an abusive nursing home rather than with their own offspring.

A ray of hope shines into the darkness. Thanks for this, Hibijibi.
You've said a mouthful. I don't spite you one bit for agreeing with
Ed's original rant since at least least you're not going off as if
everything unkind and uncaring in this world is a Japanese
prerogative. 

Everyone's coming down on me for using the word "racist" but I think
what REALLY pissed me off was not so much that as the elitist tone of
"we're so much kinder and better but we put up with it because we live
here". I wish I had never used the "R" word but then it does usually
go hand in hand with the "E" word and to be an "E" you have to be an
"R" at some level.

I was never trying to say the Japanese are all saints on Earth or
God's chosen people. I'm pretty stupid but not that stupid.

>I've also felt a decided lack of basic humanist compassion in Europe,
>particularly France, so I don't think it's just a nippon thing (although
>they succeed extremely well at it).  The role of Christianity is also a very
>interesting question, but I don't have the brainpower at present to enter
>into it.

Yes, you don't get much more unkind than many people in France (of
course there are many kind exceptions). Excellent point. I lived in
France for a time and I know of what I speak firsthand. There was a
prevailing unkindness towards me to begin with based solely on the
fact that I am an American. Many of those thousands of elderly who
died in this year's Frency summer heat wave were apparently just
abandoned by their families who couldn't be bothered with them. 

Thank you very much for your post.