For our Japanese readers : Things you should not say to Westerners

[becki_kanou]

Those examples do sound very familiar. I am curious to know what everyone's response would be when finding yourselves on the receiving end of such "compliments".

I occasionally find it a little annoying to be complimented this way (again), but as someone else said, people are not saying these things out of ill-will, so why get worked up about it?

I usually just brush it off with a まぁ〜 or a それほどでも... but sometimes I'll give a little explantion like 他の国でも日本料理や中華料理が人気なので、お箸を使 える人は結構いますよ。