[packetpirate]

My dad gives me shit about it all the time. When people ask what I listen to, he'll chime in and say "jap crap". I listen to Ajikan, Number Girl, High and Mighty Color, Erefanto Kashimashi, Younha, L'Arc~en~ciel, SunSet Swish, Yui and a whole bunch of others. I've tried having him listen to a couple of songs but he doesn't even give them the light of day. Admittedly, I've only played rock songs, and he's into country (*gag*). He's a musician, too... also, even though I can speak a good deal of Japanese, and read and write it, he still denies it whenever I tell someone I can speak Japanese.

I also had shit about it from school before I graduated. My last couple of years I was in an alternative school because my school system was too lazy to deal with my ADD (I'm not using it as a crutch, but I couldn't focus in classes with a lot of people because I needed to ask a lot of questions.) Everyone there gave me the usual crap about "you don't understand it" and "it's japanese... you're weird." I even gave one of the overly puerto rican kids there a listen of Natsusemi by Ajikan once and he said it wasn't bad. So I have to say that everyone is just going by stereotypes they heard growing up. One day in class a kid was doing his daily "ching chong" act to me and I exploded at him. I'm 6'9" so people there generally try not to piss me off unless they're trying to act tough in front of their friends. A couple of teachers from nearby rooms came running to the door asking what happened. Needless to say, he stopped the ching chong stuff.