We sat next to each other at a round table: she, recently widowed; I, rather newlywed. Before the event started and during the break, we enjoyed getting to know each other. She is the type of person you love spending time with ~ the type of person you want to BE ~ because she is genuinely interested in you and asks such good questions and listens with delight.
"Oh, I bet Jim was so glad to find you! He must have been so happy to find someone willing to be a farmer's wife. And you were used to hardships because you had lived in Japan."
?!?
"Oh, Japan is more advanced than the US in some ways," I blurted out.
What should I have said?
Overall it was a good reminder to me that we each have preconceived ideas, which we (literally) bring to the table.
2 comments:
Um, that is a hard conversation to retrieve! Perhaps you could have asked her a question back? Like "Um, what do you mean?"
Or, "Yes, I guess Japan has prepared me a little for being a farmer's wife...but there's so much it didn't prepare me for." :-)
It's better than what I would have said, which is, "Japan makes the US look like a third world country!" Good thing it was you, and not me...
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