This has been bothering me for days. I don't know why I cannot let it go, but it keeps popping in my head. Maybe I will feel better if I tell someone about it. You, reading this, get to be my venting outlet.

I went to elementary school on Wednesday with my JTE. She teaches the 6th graders there once a week. About every-other week I go with her. I see in the back of the classroom a giant piece of paper with "America" written on it in katakana. We had a few minutes before the class started so I asked her and the kids, "Oh, you've done some sort of project about Amercia? What does it say?" I could read bits and parts of it, such as holidays that are celebrated and sports that are played. One thing that struck me was that American football was not listed as a sport. The the JTE proceeded to tell me what else was said on it that I could't read. She said, "Ah, they listed some differences between Japan and America. Americans eat more food than Japanese. And they really like sweet foods. There are no club activities in schools." Excuse me? Where did they get this information? Where is their source? If we did a report about a country in the States, you'd better believe it would be from a credible book or article. In what source did it say, "Americans love sweet foods"? Of all the things they could pick out about America, they write about that?? In a world here that revolves around omiyage, don't tell me that Americans love sweets anymore than Japanese. And where did they get the information saying that we don't have clubs in American schools? I was angry and had many questions for them. But alas, class had to start and I didn't want to rip apart the kids' project. Hopefully I have been able to get rid of some of their steriotypes by being an American here. I hate that this bothered me so much. But alas, it did. A report should be based on facts from a credible source. Anyhow...