A lot of people have no context of the times.

I was wearing my blood chit jacket to travel in a while ago and at MSP airport a Chinese/American woman in her 20s asked me if she could photograph it and I let her.

I asked her if she could translate it and she said, "Maybe a couple of the characters." I told her to take the picture to her parents and get a good translation.

Her English was perfect and totally unaccented and I imagine she's at least second or third generation but she actually could read a few of the characters. She was confused as to why there was a Taiwanese flag on it and I told her that it had been the Mainland Chinese flag until 1949 and the blood chit was dated 1940. In about 1949 Taiwan had taken over the Mainland flag.

She looked confused and I told her to read her history and she might learn a thing or two. I gave her a rough translation of the chit and she asked me what the reward for saving a pilot was. I told her I believe it was $500 USD and she said it wasn't very much money.

I pointed out that in 1940 the average price of a house Stateside was about $2000 and that in pre-war China $500 was enough to retire on for life. She looked somewhat confused.

Actually any Chinese she had in her had long been diluted away. She was Chinese in heritage only. She was just another dumb American as far as I could see. She seemed to know little about her heritage.

Still, that happened at MSP and in my experience on the West Coast I've had positive comments from Chinese Americans that know exactly what the blood chit says. I was surprised she was unaware, actually. I think she was a local going somewhere.

She's not alone. There are a lot of people that don't understand the context of the time in question. I saw some dumb kid looking at a picture of a mid 1800s train belching smoke that asked why the EPA didn't shut them down.

Then again I heard a teacher say that the Americans lost the Battle of Lexington but clobbered the British on their march back to Boston by hiding behind billboards and phone poles. Go figure.

Then again I once explained to someone that George Washington's white horse was really light grey and everyone thought it was white because that's what it looked like on the news on the old black and white televisions. They took it hook, line and sinker.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY