[jason_tko]

I've lived in Japan for 14 years, and I'm doing a startup here.

In my experience, if you stay in Japan for more than a year, you go through several phases.

The first phase is confusion. Why am I being treated differently, even though I'm doing and saying the same things as another Japanese person.

The second phase that quickly follows is anger. This is bullshit! I know my accent and pronunciation is correct! Why are they saying they don't understand me! WTF!

The third is dull acceptance. You're not going to change Japan. They're not like this because they're bad people. They're just inexperienced with foreigners and foreign things, and they're overcompensating and trying to be nice in the way they think is nice.

The final stage is fun. This is the best stage. You understand all the social patterns and why everything is happening, so you just relax and start enjoying it.

When you go into a restaurant and order in Japanese and the waiters response is "I can't speak English! Sorry!" you respond in Japanese "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Is there anyone here who speaks Japanese?"

This often (not always) has the interesting effect of changing the "foreigners cannot speak or understand Japanese" mindset, if only for a moment.

Sounds like you're in between stages two and three. It gets better.

To quickly respond to your list:

1) It's your face. It's nothing personal. They're just trying to be accommodating.

2) My typical response is "I've been using chopsticks since I've been four, since we used to order Chinese takeout. So complimenting me on my chopstick skills feels the same as me complimenting you on your deft fork techniques." This may result in enlightening your Japanese friends as to why it's challenging to be overly grateful for their well-intended compliment.

3) Kanji is hard. They're just impressed that you can read it, since they spent years as kids studying and repeating kanji over and over again. Having said that, my typical response here is "Actually, I think English is much, much harder than Japanese. Sure Japanese is difficult, but it's logical. English is full of exceptions, weird spellings, inconsistent grammar, because it's a mix of languages. If I wasn't born a native speaker, I can't imagine how I'd learn English from scratch."

4) Yep - you're definitely not alone. It can be hard to avoid feeling a bit slighted here. If you haven't seen this already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLt5qSm9U80 I gently correct people here. "Excuse me - since I'm ordering, could you please look at me?"

By the way, thinking of these things as "micro-aggressions" is a terrible way to think. They're not being aggressive. They're often just not very familiar with foreign people, and they're doing their best to be accommodating. Once you get to stage four, this becomes a lot easier.

Good luck, and don't forget to swing by the Hacker News Tokyo Meetups if you're in Tokyo - https://hntokyo.doorkeeper.jp/ - we're just about to announce another one.

[justusw]

Thank you a lot for the nice response and the kind explanation. You are definitely right that there are never any bad intentions behind the various experiences that can be had as a foreigner.

Perhaps my problem is not really the experience itself, but that I don't know how to deal with certain situations in a smooth and sociable way. I also have not lived in Japan long enough to really master all social interactions. It's quite easy to forget when you're from another culture how much routine your own culture already has and how different it can be.

So, stage4目指せ!

[jason_tko]

My pleasure. Lack of experience in the unique social situations that Japan presents is also completely understandable, and part of the adventure.

頑張れ！

[dan00]

Great comment, thanks!