Spat at.

The other day I had a funny five minutes. Spat at by an old racist man and offered a can of drink by a sweet lady. The guy sat there next to me and summoned a dirty gret clob of phlegm and spat it out. Okay, not at me as such, but then his missus came round the corner and he said something to her which I didn't understand. But she repeated it and I recognised the words "baka Gaijin" which basically means stupid foreigner. Charming no?

Then as if in balance an even more surreal thing happened. A nice old lady came up to me with two cans of drink and insisted I choose one. What I chose turned out to be the closest thing I've had to a decent cup of tea since I got here.

At first I thought maybe the woman had seen the old man spitting and being rude and felt sorry for me. But then I realised she probably didn't feel sorry for me as such, she just didn't want me to think that this was how all Japanese people behaved. To me that shows a level of national pride and duty that we rarely see in England. Ironic thing is, the old racist guy probably considers himself to be quite patriotic aswell.