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Today I again went to Universal Studios Japan to be force fed how great America is. Don`t get me wrong, I enjoy going to the place. This was my third time there and although I would prefer that Disneyland were next to Osaka, USJ is good enough to have warranted me buying a year`s pass.

When we are there Reiko and I have codewords for different nationalities we spot. This is to prevent us (ie. me) shouting out, “Wow look at that fat American over there! It must be true. They are all born with an inexhaustible supply of hot dogs hooked up to their hands.” Therefore in order to preserve discretion and to enable me to see my next birthday, Americans (and anyone else looking vaguely Western) are therefore known as Elmos and the Chinese (the next most popular group) are known as Spiderman. It`s the USJ theme. Just go with it ok?

Reiko is always surprised that I am unable to tell the difference between a Japanese person and a Chinese one. When she spots any, she will sneer, “Spiderman” at me in a thinly veiled gesture of disgust.

“How the hell can you tell?” I reply bewildered.
“It`s easy. The clothes they wear, their haircuts and make up. It`s so obvious.”

I glance at the innocents she has singled out for inspection and compare them to the hordes of Japanese buried in hats shaped like Jaws trying to bite their heads off and holding garish plastic Sesame Street popcorn holders tightly in their grip and see no distinction at all save that is the last time they will be eating and wearing those items and remain as confused as ever.

We will then walk past them and hear them clucking away in Mandarin and she is proved right. She lived there for five years and so is more finely attuned to these things and the Chinese and Japanese history is not one of cooperation, peace and love and so maybe it is all Japanese that can do this. Maybe they get lessons on it at school? I shall try and perform some tests.

When I was much younger I mistakenly thought that all Asian people (like dogs, cats and birds of the same species) all looked identical. To an extent this is true - relatively small stature, brown eyes and black hair closer to African-American hair than Western. Of course long before I came to Japan I realised this wasn`t true (the same with the animals) and now that I am here I see the great variety of heights and widths, the wildly different hair colours thanks to artificial dyes and the myriad of fashions worn to individualise themselves still further but it is tricky to distinguish between a Japanese person and a Chineseman just as you would I no doubt believe find it difficult to identify the Englishman and a German in a pair or American and Canadian. I`ll have to go run some tests.