(from "Mainichi Weekly", 04/Mar/1995)

Mary King

It was an exhilarating experience, a memory that I will always treasure, to be able to observe these great beasts of the sea at such close range. But my trip was marred slightly by one particular incident.

On arriving at the B&B (bed and breakfast) I met a young Japanese girl, who, having returned from her jaunt out on the wild waves whale-watching, was nursing a hot cup of cocoa in her hands.

She obviously could not speak much English, as the landlady was gesticulating frantically to determine whether the girl needed to borrow some extra dry clothing. I tried, in my pidgin Japanese, to relay this message to the lost and confused-looking girl.

"You speak Japanese?" The question was shrieked at me like some sort of accusation and I turned to see a woman of about 30 standing in the doorway, gazing at me critically.

"A little," I answered "not much." I was taken aback by her tone. "How come you speak Japanese?" The woman's antipodean accent pierced my ears and definitely had an unfriendly edge to it.

"I live in Japan," I replied, rather baffled by her manner.

"You live in Japan!" she squealed incredulously. "I don't like the Japanese," she concluded vociferously.

I felt terribly embarrassed for the Japanese girl and hoped that she had not understood, but as I glanced towards her I could see that she was sheepishly sipping her drink and trying to appear like she was not really there.

I was outraged by the rude and aggressive manner displayed by the New Zealander, who was also just a guest in the house, and was determined to discover what was the root of her prejudice and then knock her down to size.

" I happen to like both Japan and the Japanese very much," I told her, looking her straight in the eye. "Have you ever been there?" I queried.

"No," came the sharp reply.

"So, why don't you like the Japanese?" I ventured.

"Because they eat whales," she snapped.

I was staggered by her reply, almost wanting to laugh at what seemed to be such an inane reason to disparage a whole nation, and so I decided to make my stance perfectly clear. "Whale meat," I said in all honestly, "is absolutely delicious. I love it. You should try it some time."

Stung by my words, she abruptly turned on her heels and stormed out of the kitchen.

The New Zealander, I later discovered, worked for Greenpeace in London. She hardly muttered a word to me during the rest of my stay but I did observe that "Ms. Greenpeace," who claimed to be vegetarian, did succumb to a plateful of shrimp on her last night at the B&B and punctuated her lip-smacking with much finger licking.

Watching her eat made me wonder how many people in this big wide world are out there fighting to save shrimp.

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