Later, we got to talking about the illegal alien crisis and all the Haitians flooding into Texas and she asked me when the United States had acquired Haiti. When I said we never had and that it was an independent country, but had once been a colony of France, she was genuinely puzzled: why were we taking in all those people from someplace we had no connection too? Then she asked me why we didn't send the army to the border and open fire on the illegals and drive them away.
I used to know a Mexican-American guy who grew up in Salinas and got involved with the gangs there but managed to get away from all that and move to another city where he got a job as an inside bank guard. He made $11 an hour and was proud of how well he was doing with such a responsible and prestigious job. Once he asked me didn't I think $11 an hour was good money. I agreed that it certainly was and he said soon he would have enough money saved to take me out to dinner. Then he got demoted to outside guard. Instead of being warm and dry inside, with a chair to sit on, he stood outside in all sorts of weather. And his pay dropped to $8.50 an hour. Our dinner was postponed. He had diabetes and the pain in his legs made it impossible to stand for very long. He lost his job, was evicted from his apartment and then just disappeared.
One of my relatives was an engineer with North American at Downy in the 1960s. He worked on the Apollo Command Module. I mentioned this to someone I was lunching with once and he said the whole moon landing thing was a hoax and never happened. I looked at him, looked down at my coffee, then at my wrist where a watch would have been had I been wearing one, said I just realized I had an appointment and had to get going.
When I used to ride the super-crowded commuter trains in Tokyo, sometimes I would be groped. 
Once some guy even ejaculated on me. I didn't realize it until I got home and changed my clothes and saw this...well, you know... and practically tossed my cookies. I threw that outfit right into the trash. When I mentioned what had happened to a friend, she complained, "Nobody ever does that to me!" 
Another time, when I was walking past a girlie bar in Ayase, the doorman or whatever he was stopped me and asked in broken English if I would like to be a hostess there, handing me a business card. Then he raised both hands palm up and, smiling, repeated "Oppai! Oppai!"
One time I was having dinner with a Japanese graduate student matriculating at Cal and we got to talking about American history. I mentioned the Civil War. He had never heard of it. I referenced the Revolution. He looked blank. He thought slavery was legal throughout the US and that it had only been ended by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s. I asked him if he thought the attack on Pearl Harbor was revenge for the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima. He looked thoughtful, then said he had never considered that but it was probably true.
A Japanese immigrant lady in her mid-80s began to get senile and could no longer be trusted to live by herself in her own apartment anymore so her daughter, whom I know, who works long hours and couldn't look after her, found an assisted-living facility that charged $3,000 a month, a figure she could barely afford, and moved her there. All the staff were Mexicans and the food they served was the cheapest kind of Mexican food, usually just a bean burrito or plain mollete. The old lady had a hard time eating such food and asked for 
some Japanese dishes, especially rice, but the request was denied. Then the facility supervisor announced that all residents had to get Covid-19 shots. So her daughter took her for an inoculation. The shot made her so sick that she was hospitalized for three days. When she returned to her room at the assisted care facility she found that many of her belongings had been stolen, including $390 in cash that she had entrusted to her personal care provider, a Mexican woman. This woman denied she had been given any money, saying the old lady was senile and imagining things. Her daughter called the police to report the theft but the dispatcher hung up on her.
This same old Japanese lady owns property in Harajuku that is worth $8 million. Her daughter wants her to sell it so that she can afford to move to a much better assisted-care facility, but the old lady refuses, saying her father (who has been dead for decades) won't let her. She receives $1,100 a month Social Security, her daughter earns $60,000 a year, and both their savings are almost exhausted.
Speaking of compliments, I was showing my friend, who is a real, live PI, around an aircraft carrier one time with some aviator friends and she lagged behind with one guy and later I asked what they were talking about and she said that he was interested to know about her work as a forensic accountant and licensed private investigator. "He wanted to know if I carried a 'gat.' Kidding, I said I always
had one tucked into my garter belt. He said he'd like to see it
sometime and I said, what, the gun? and he said no, the garter belt!" A joke:
There was this guy at a bar just looking at his drink. He stays like that for half of an hour.Then this big trouble-making truck driver sits down next to him, takes the drink from the guy, and swigs it all down. The poor man starts crying.
The truck driver says, "Come on man, I was just joking. Here, I'll buy you another drink. I can't stand to see a man cry."
"No, it's not that," says the guy. "This day is the worst of my life. First, my alarm clock doesn't go off and I'm way late to work. My boss, outraged, fires me. When I leave the building and go to my car, I discover it has been stolen. The police say that they can do nothing. I get a cab to return home, and when I get out I realize I left my wallet and credit cards in it. The cab driver just drives away.
"I go inside my house, arriving earlier than normal, and find my wife in bed with the gardener and the pool boy. I yell at her but the two men beat me up and throw me out of my own house. So I come to this bar. And just when I was thinking about putting an end to my life, you show up and drink my poison."
