Social studies teacher Sho Sasaki is fiercely proud of his native Iwate's local heritage.
Like many Japanese, he also, and quite self-consciously, calls himself a nationalist.
So when Sasaki charged into the teachers' room at the high school where he works and loudly proclaimed his outrage at the Supreme Court's ruling on Iwate-born Korean health worker Chong Hyang Gyun -- barred from promotion by the Tokyo government -- his were not the words and actions of a rabid, anti-establishment, "loony lefty."