I’m back from my trip with Lord Curzon and will be posting some pictures in the coming days. This tidbit, however, just couldn’t wait:
On Wednesday, rather than take a bus around the peninsula to catch our ferry to Hakodate, we decided to hitchhike straight through the mountains. This turned out to be pretty strenuous, as nobody was going all the way to our destination, so we had to thumb five rides and do a lot of walking in between.
The last car to pick us up was an aging four-door occupied by three thuggish-looking guys with buzz cuts. As we zoomed up the coast, headed for the very northern tip of Honshu, the driver opened up the conversation something like this:
DRIVER: Where you guys from?
CURZON: America.
DRIVER: Ha ha! Oh! You heard about Koizumi going to Yasukuni?
CURZON: (knowing smile) Oh, yes.
DRIVER: (more nervously) Heh heh… (awkward silence)
After they dropped us off at the ferry terminal, I remarked to Curzon: “It’s a pity we don’t know how to say ‘fuck yeah!’ in Japanese.”
I would say he probably wanted you to tell him your honest opinion. The uyoku I’ve met tend to get so fixated on their own little social bubble, they sometimes forget that people who live outside their sphere have their own individual views, and when they are put in a situation where they have to deal with foreigners, who are less threatening than Japanese who disagree with them, they are generally interested in hearing “outside” opinions.
I remember it differently:
DRIVER: Where you guys from?
CURZON: America.
DRIVER: Ha ha! Oh! You heard about Koizumi going to Yasukuni?
CURZON: Oh, yes.
DRIVER: Hmmmmmm…
CURZON: And we really support it.
DRIVER: …
Ha ha! cool!