CAREFUL READING
Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and choose the corresponding letter.

     Before graduation from the University of Virginia, I sent my resume to African embassies and consulates, trying to find a position teaching English. But I didn't find a school in all the continent that would guarantee employment. In desperation, I applied to the Japanese Ministry of Education and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to teach English in Japan, which became my job offer.
     But the more I thought about going to Japan, the more apprehensive I became, I knew nothing of the history or culture, and I didn't speak the language. I worried that facing prejudice in a foreign country would be extremely frustrating.
     Arriving at Sakura Nishi High School, about 40 minutes from Tokyo, I was relieved to find that everyone, from my principal to the PTA mothers, treated me with kindness and respect. But I discovered that while Japanese teens respected me as an American, they idolized me because I was Black.
     While I was in Japan, trendy department stores advertised Booby Brown posters, Cross Colours gear and X caps in their windows, Rappers from Ice-T to Ice Cube toured, and Malcolm X was at the major theaters. On Saturday nights Shibuya ward. Tokyo’s hub of hip-hop and high fashion, was packed with students in baggy jeans, “Doc”Martens, Chicango Bulls caps, permed (烫头发的) Afros and dreadlocks. To them, my being African-American meant I was Kakoi, cool. And before long I was a star.
     At a track-and-field event in Tokyo, I was one of the few foreign spectators. I hadn't been there ten minutes when a screaming mob of young girls swarmed around me like bees, waving pens, notebooks and T-shirts in my face, shouting,“Sign, sign, sign!”I was petrifide(发呆的).Then it dawned on me that they thought I was an athlete. I couldn’t explain in Japanese that I was only a spectator, so I surrendered.
     That day was only the first of many incidents of mistaken identity and instant stardom. Nightclub managers let me in free, knowing my presence would attract patrons, and security guards at rap concerts gave me backstage passes. To be young, single and Black in Tokyo in the nineties was surely as exciting and romantic as the pre-World War Ⅱ Spain Hemingway knew.
     But I wanted to say to the Japanese, “You must understand, being Black is more involved than just wearing an X cap. It means being committed to furthering our race and nurturing our children. Being Black runs deeper than just having rhythm. It means possessing a history of more than 300 years of fighting for freedom and equality. And as a people, we are more diverse than our hair-styles. Our talents and interests vary as much as our shades of brown.”I wished I could have said what I really should have been telling myself all along, rather than defining myself by our images as either sports stars and performers or criminals and victims.