Japanese tendency to use 'we', and to talk about the Japanese race as a whole. This was something I could relate to -- I recalled many lessons where I was told "we Japanese do this" and asked "what do English people do?" (rather than "what do you do?"). I'll always remember this conversation: "We Japanese have fish, rice and miso soup for breakfast. What do English people have?" I pondered the question, recalling how much bread and jam, and even cereal I had seen in the supermarket in Japan, but I knew what response my student wanted. "English people usually have cereal or toast for breakfast. Sometimes we even have a 'fry up'...". One of the things about teaching English is accepting stereotypes. It's easier to learn about a culture if you base things on stereotypes, whether that's right or wrong. So, in the lessons I taught, American's liked Big Macs, English people liked fish and chips, and Japanese people liked rice. That's just the way it was. So, am I racist too? I'd never really thought that much about race before reading Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist . In fact, if I'm totally honest, if this book had been about a black American living in another country instead of Japan, I probably wouldn't have read it. But then I would have missed out. Surely one of the keys to not being racist is to be able to see things through other people's eyes, and