The Apology

I am sitting in the meeting room at Kuju Junior High School in rural southern Japan. Across the table from me is a pudgy Japanese Charlie Chaplin look-alike, the principal of the school. We are bare-footed, drinking coffee, and pretending to have a conversation (to have a conversation in earnest two people must speak the same language). Somewhere between, "I live in New York City. I eat hot dogs there" and "Sean-san, I have a daughter you should meet. You can be my son" we get to discussing the wafer-light subject of religion. No one is Jewish in Japan, which is both a phenomenal band name and a little-known fact. In the midst of conveying my pseudo-Jewishness Principal Charlie Chaplin's face drops and his eyes glaze over with emotion.

Dropping to a full bow he says, "Very very sorry for World War."

I am speechless is an understatement. I manage to string together, "Hey, don't worry about it." Which is perhaps too nonchalant. Then I stare out the window at anything. Anything.

And that is how Japan apologized to the Jews and officially ended World War II.

-SW