Perhaps this is made a little funnier to me because I often get asked questions about the meanings of words and phrases by various Japanese people. True, it wouldn't be terribly funny if you were one of the other passengers or a crew member on board the plane, but be that as it may, there is some humor here.

From the Chicago Tribune.......
A 60-year-old Japanese passenger on a flight leaving O'Hare International Airport caused a bomb scare late Sunday afternoon when a passenger saw him write the words "suicide bomb" on a piece of paper and alerted authorities, police said.
United Airlines Flight 1184, scheduled to leave the airport for Columbus, Ohio, was on the runway around 5:30 p.m. when the pilot learned of the note, turned the plane around and taxied to a nearby gate, city aviation spokeswoman Annette Martinez said.
All 120 passengers were taken off the plane while the Japanese passenger was initially arrested for making an inappropriate remark, Martinez said.
But authorities soon learned that the Japanese national, who was on the plane on business, was only writing words he didn't understand so he could look them up later with a dictionary, O'Hare police Sgt. Philip Deerig said.
"He happened to be reading [a magazine] that said suicide bomb, " Deerig said. "He didn't understand these two words. He wrote them down and the passenger next to him got a little scared."
The man was released, police said, and allowed to re-board the flight, which left three hours late.
"It was just an honest mistake," Deerig said

I guess it happened yesterday. Like I say, it wouldn't be funny at the time if you were on board the plane, but since I was not and since no one got hurt, I had to laugh a little when I read it. I will also copy here the article from CNN.com but for a different reason.

From CNN.com...
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A Japanese man flying to Ohio was arrested after he was seen writing down the words "suicide bomb," but he was released without charge after explaining that it was an impromptu English exercise.
The 60-year-old man told investigators he came across the words in a newspaper and wanted to look up their meaning, police spokeswoman Alice Casanova said.
"He teaches himself English by reading newspapers," she said. "It was all just a miscommunication."
The man was aboard United Airlines flight 1184 en route to Dayton, Ohio, on a business trip Sunday when a fellow passenger spotted the words and alerted an attendant, Casanova said.
The flight returned to O'Hare International Airport, where the man was taken into custody and all of the other 120 passengers were taken off the plane and rescreened.
Investigators also searched the plane. "Nothing panned out and he was released," Casanova said.
Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said travelers need to be mindful of how they behave on airplanes because potential security threats are treated very seriously.
"We caution people not to write about bombs because if they're going on vacation, their travel plans will be disrupted," she said.

Now, is it just me or does that last line seems a bit strange? Business trips are ok to disrupt? Or how about that fact that we shouldn't write about bombs on airplanes because in this day and age it's just plain wrong?
I'm perhaps being a little nitpicky here but I thought that a strange thing to say.
Anyway, enough about all that.

I have just about finished putting together my little speech on attitude. I've decided that speaking on such a subject is risky in that I could easily come off as sounding preachy. So instead of saying "do this," "don't do that," I will only mention aspects of Japan as they relate to us foreigners in Yamanashi and I will tell a few of the stories from my first year. I will tell a couple of the fun stories, a couple of the strange stories, and perhaps one or two things that might fall under the "negative" light. I am doing it this way because at the mid-year seminar in Tokyo that we, who have just finished our first year, were required to attend there was a great talk I attended on the last day. The guy's name was Robert Juppe and his talk was called "Making the Most of Life in Japan." He has lived over here for 18 years and was a JET when the whole programme began. Not only was he an entertaining speaker but I never had the feeling of "this guy thinks he knows everything about this place." He was pretty laid back in his approach, obviously has had to work hard over the years, and did it all with a sense of humor. His stories were good and interesting and I thought that rather than telling us "this is how you should be" he illustrated to us, through his own past actions and attitudes, the way to approach life over here.
There are those people, amongst us foreigners, who seem to think if they are having some difficulty with a situation or an individual it is because they are living in Japan and dealing with the Japanese people. But I think that what these people forget is that you can have a bad day anywhere, you can have a jerk for a co-worker at any job and in any country. I'm not sure why it is but a few of the foreigners, when they are having trouble with some person at work over here, tend to lay the blame on that person being Japanese as the root of the problem. I have yet to figure this out. I had many jobs in the States and worked with both great individuals and some real idiots. I never laid the blame on them being American so why would I do the equivalent over here?
But I digress, what I really want to share with these new teachers is the fact that Japan is an interesting, fun, sometimes unpredictable, and quite often enjoyable place to live if you can approach it in the right way. And rather than tell them how to do it, I feel I can only show them how I've taken things over the last year. I hope it works.

Ok, nearly lunch time.