While working on my doctorate at the University of Michigan, I lived for several years in a graduate dormitory that housed many international students. I still remember vividly when I walked down the hall to visit a student from Japan. She had a map of the world hanging on her wall; the moment I looked at it, my own world was turned upside down. For at the center of her map was not Africa or, as I was used to seeing it growing up, the United States, but Japan!