WASHINGTON ¨C Miki Dezaki, who first arrived in Japan on a teacher exchange program in 2007, wanted to learn about the nation that his parents had once called home.
He taught English, explored the country and affectionately chronicled his cross-cultural adventures on social media, most recently on YouTube, where he gained a small following for videos like ¡°Hitchhiking Okinawa¡± and the truly cringe-worthy ¡°What Americans think of Japan.¡± One of them, on the experience of being gay in Japan, attracted 75,000 views and dozens of thoughtful comments.
Dezaki didn¡¯t think the reaction to his latest video was going to be any different, but he was wrong. ¡°If I should have anticipated something, I should have anticipated the Net ¡®uyoku¡¯ (rightwingers),¡± he said, referring to the informal army of young, hyper-nationalist Japanese Web users who tend to descend on any article ¡ª or person ¡ª they perceive as critical of Japan.
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