How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
It was true the Americans were somewhat uncivilized. They were loud and dirty and let their hair grow in unruly knots and tangles. They swore and cussed and spat. They often ate with their hands, and rather like animals. They didn't smell too good! And their whaling practice was a very bloody business indeed.
But they knew a lot of things about which Manjiro knew nothing, and the thing they knew the most was the thing he knew the least: the size and shape and scope of the world. How could you not want to understand the world in which you lived? (2.9.24-25)
This passage comes right after the Captain shows the Japanese guys their country on the map and basically disses them in English. Manjiro's response in the first paragraph above is kind of similarly condescending, except that it's in his head. But the second paragraph shows how appealing it is to Manjiro to bridge that divide between the Japanese and the Americans because, to him, "contrasting regions" isn't so important as knowing his larger context: the world.
Quote #8
Through the trees and far down the beach, Manjiro could hear the native people singing. Mele and hula, their music and dancing was called. They weren't supposed to do it; the missionaries said it was wrong. Manjiro thought the music was lovely; it had a motion like the sea—it rolled over you and through you like water. Western missionaries had come to Japan, too, a couple of hundred years earlier, and they were one reason Japan had closed its doors to foreigners. Seeing how the native islanders here were expected to change almost everything about their lives for the missionaries, Manjiro could understand why Japan had expelled them. (2.10.9)
Westerners don't come off so good here. Manjiro is giving an underbelly view of Western "influence" on Hawai'i—and he frames it all in terms of a colonial power taking away a native cultural custom.
Quote #9
The next day was May Day. The custom was to fill a little basket with flowers along with a handwritten note, then drop it at the door of a girl whom you liked. Upon hearing your knock at the door, she was supposed to chase and catch you and—most unbelievably—kiss you! (3.24.1)
Okay, so we definitely don't celebrate May Day like this anymore. Do we have any contemporary customs that are as sweet as this?