Hi, I am a Minnesotan working in Japan for three years. It was several days ago that I was bewildered to watch a TV programmed which assured me of the bloody arrogance of Japanese people.

According to the programme, E. Macron (the President of France) bowed down before B. Johnson (the Prime Minister of the UK), instead of shaking hands, in order to maintain social distancing.
To my amazement, the programme insisted that that behaviour of his must be influenced by the Japanese manner so-called "ojigi".
Formerly, I could hardly begin to imagine that Japanese people didn't know that the custom of "ojigi" came from China, as well as their traditional costume, architecture, and writing system.

One day I met a Japanese youth who wished that Chinese civilisation had never existed from the first.
Perhaps, since he didn't know the immensity of the Chinese influence on the Japanese culture, he couldn't imagine that, in that case, Japan would fail to have so developed civilisation as it has now, and moreover, might have been colonised by Spain or by Holland in the 16th century.