As the taxi driver drove off to take me to Munich airport, he asked me casually where I was going. Japan, I answered, thinking for the first time ever, that that was a loaded answer in Germany. 'Oh, hopefully not to the north east', he replied. 'Oh, yes, I am - I have lots of Japanese friends there I want to see'. I was met with silence. To end the silence before it filled with embarrassment, I babbled on, explaining how my husband used to work in Garching (near Munich), but then he went to work in Japan while I stayed in Germany because of our children's education, so we had lots of friends there. Once on the plane from Frankfurt to Nagoya, I started sifting through all the newspapers and magazines I'd collected. The headline
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