LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

The latest issue of Time-Asia features a cover story concerning the decades-(centuries?) long animosity between China and Japan, and today (or last night, for you North Americaners) Bush visited Canada -- both the magazine article and the diplomatic trip reminders that, let's say it together now, everyone hates their neighbours.

It's true. I never realized this until I moved to Japan, but nobody likes the guy next door. I thought Canadians had a monopoly on disliking their neighbours to the south (or north, or east, or west, depending on the country) but we don't. Japan, China, South Korea, North Korea, Thailand Cambodia -- before I entered Asia, all of these countries were the same to me, one big indistinguishable glop, which says something either about the Canadian educational system or my own lack of interest in the area. (Or maybe both.)

Once I stepped foot on Nipponese soil, though, and started to read the newspaper, and listen to students, and dig through the history texts, I realized that Canadians were not alone in heaping scorn on their neighbours; the Japanese do it to the Chinese and the Koreans, and vice versa. And then I moved to lovely, scenic Cambodia, and realized that the Cambodians don't like the Thais or the Vietnamese much, and the feeling's pretty much mutual on all sides. (Wars tend to create a little bit of angst.)

Do the reasons even matter? They bridge culture, these reasons do, encompassing the usual potent blend of jealousy and domination. The small countries hate the big countries; the big countries pretend to be pretty much indifferent.

I don't know whether it's somewhat scary or relatively reassuring that the tensions (however mild) that exist between Canada and America are replicated halfway around the world. It means that everybody's the same, that all nations harbor similar skepticism and weariness directed towards the countries that line their borders.

After all, Cambodia and Thailand and Vietnam, and China and Japan and Korea, have all had, what, centuries, if not millenia, to hone and sharpen their blades of hatred.

Canada and the States have only been at this national-resentment thing for a mere two hundred years or so. (Not that America particularly thinks one way or another about Canada, I think, but hey -- the States is a young country. Give it time. Canada might tick it off big-time just yet. We're slow-starters, us Canucks, but once we get going, watch out -- we might just, like, slap you or something. Maybe even twice. On both cheeks.) There's still plenty of time to develop the whole disgust-bordering-on-hatred gig that is so common in Asia.

And still time to realize that we're all in this baby together. If you're the Jeffersons, and you live next to that bigot Archie Bunker, you can always move it on up to the big time, to that castle in the sky. Unless Mars comes knockin', we're all stuck on this blue orb. Might as well invite the neighbours over for a glass of cool lemonade, some cookies, a game of pool and a DVD.

Who says three thousand years of tensions can't be solved in a century or two?