拙者は好きでござる！

[dorchadas]

Today I learned that the first native speaker of English who taught in Japan was a half-Scottish, half-Chinook man named Ranald MacDonald who became obsessed with Japan, signed on as a sailor on a whaling ship, convinced the crew to drop him off in a small boat near Hokkaidō, landed on shore and violated the Sakoku policy (the penalty for which was death), was handed over to the shogunate by the Ainu, and while waiting for a foreign ship to come pick him up went on to teach English to a group of people, one of whom became the lead negotiator between the shogunate and Commodore Perry's fleet.

History is stranger than fiction.

[The Japanese in the title is my samurai-speak translation of "I'm lovin' it.]