Richard Nixon Library

Visited with free admission on Memorial Day.

I had an interesting experience.

There is a room with statues of world leaders in Nixon's time, and one was Japan's then prime minister Shigeru Yoshida.  (Grandfather of current Minister of Finance, Taro Aso.)

An elderly lady asked me, "Why is there a Japanese person here, aren't we enemies?  We dropped the a-bomb on them."

She laughed at herself after I reminded her that the war ended in 1945, and Nixon became president well after that.

History was never my favorite subject, probably due to the nature it is tought in school.

You memorize a whole bunch of events and the dates they took place.

Now, I view history as how cultures are shaped, and cultures shape how current people think and behave.

I think that understanding history is a critical part of social interaction.

Too bad I didn't realize that back then, maybe I would have gotten a better score in my exams.  :)

Anyways, I checked Wikipedia later on, and found out he actually became president in 1969.

Yoshida Shigeru actually passed away in 1967.

So he's not even alive during Nixon's presidency, which makes me wonder why he's in the Nixon Library, too.