Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?

http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/why-do-japanese-change-their-attitude-when-they-communicate-with-foreigners

TOKYO —Many Japanese people don’t have the opportunity to communicate with foreigners, so when they do, they tend to change their attitude a bit.

Foreigners react in different ways to this — some feel they are being treated special, while others are uncomfortable. So says the website MADAME RiRi.

Here are some examples from the website.


“I think that the Japanese education system is the main reason why Japanese people cannot communicate with foreign people naturally. Japanese people don’t study much about other races and cultures, do they?” (American woman)

“At first, I was happy when Japanese people gave me compliments like ‘You are good at using chopsticks’ and ‘You speak Japanese very well.’ However, now that I have been in Japan for a long time, these sort of compliments sound like that they are looking down at me.” (Australian man)

“I think that staff in shops and restaurants treat foreign people better than Japanese people. However, in some situations, I feel like I am being treated like a mascot.” (Dutch man)

“Actually, it’s annoying when many Japanese people show me a product and ask ‘Is this product available America too?’ I have to tell them I’m not American.” (Danish man)
“I’m happy that Japanese people treat me as a foreigner. I think that foreign people don’t have any pressure to practice speaking Japanese because Japanese people don’t expect foreigners to do so.” (Brazilian man)

“If you come to Japan thinking that all Japanese people are sweet, you will be in for a shock a lot. This is my experience and there is no country where everybody is sweet.” (Italian man)

“Sometimes, when I see foreigners in Japanese dramas and animation, most of them seem stupid. It makes me uncomfortable if Japanese people think that foreign people are like that.” (American man)

“Japan is not a country with many immigrants like America and Europe. I think many Japanese have a hard time communicating not just with foreigners but also with other Japanese who are outside their sphere. That’s the ‘soto-uchi’ concept.” (American man)

“I think Japanese people change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners because they are interested in foreign countries and cultures.” (English man)

“Not all Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners. Japanese people who have lived abroad as exchange students, for example, communicate with foreigners in much the same way as they interact with Japanese. Maybe it depends on their experience level in communicating with with foreigners.” (American man)

True Love

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way - in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake?
Listen to them laughing - its an insult.
The language they use - deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines -
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!

It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

-Wallace Stevens

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!
As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

-emily dickinson

This Is Just To Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably

saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.