This is just the kind of thing I wanted this moblog for, little inconsequential reflections I would otherwise forget: on the way to the train station just now, passing a mother and her little girl, the young girl pointed at me and said eigo (which means "English language"). Obviously she was instinctively associating me with her English teacher (it's quite common for kids here to start learning English at 2 or 3). I started to laugh, being genuinely amused (better than "foreigner" at any rate), while her mother uttered a quiet sumimasen ("sorry") as I passed. Perhaps you had to be there, but there was something heartening about it. (no picture)