Ancient
Adjective: of or in a time long past
What does it take to heal ancient wrongs?
For a long time, Lin had no idea whatsoever, and was perfectly content to carry on hating the Japanese people as a whole for the rest of his life.
He could come up with a variety of reasons to justify his prejudice, from the fact that so many Japanese were ignorant to what their ancestors had done, to his great-grandfather's death in the war, to the fact that even with the forbidding barrier of silence that he kept about him, they were still as quick as he was when it came to discrimination. Foreigner, they seemed to whisper, twining it into their words and eyes and gestures. You don't belong here.
But this girl—this Japanese schoolgirl, sixteen years of age—in a way, she knew better than he did what had happened in ancient past, not because of historical statistics or a sense of superiority, but with an acute, sensitive view similar to Gene's, as though she felt the pain of the world and would do anything to try and stop it.
And it was impossible to hate her.