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RSS  /    1650+ Posts... and Counting  Won't Ask, Won't Tell
Older Japanese men in Hawaii can be very hardheaded and
difficult to understand (unless you understand their ways). This
is particularly true of the nisei in Hawaii who were taught old
style Japanese values by their parents but also learned to
function here in English and pidgin in the then Territory of
Hawaii. Among the strictest of the Japanese were the budo
(martial arts) teachers. These teachers of Kendo, Ju Jutsu,
Judo, Aikido, and Karate were even more old style and many
remain so today.  We sometimes say in Hawaii that an old style
Japanese man is samurai. There is a joke that a particularly
difficult man is not samurai but daimyo. The most hardheaded of
all is shogun!  There is an expression I heard many times in
private from my older sensei: "If I have to ask, I won't ask. If
I have to tell, I won't tell."  I will give you an example of
the first part. Let's say I am outside mowing