Japan is an island country. People are living in a small world. I could easily understand that "common" way of their perspectives on things.

Even like about 10 years ago, people in the main land Japan used to think all Okinawans do Karate. In a worse case, they even thought all Okinawans could speak English.

We may be so educated and score high in Math, but our ignorance toward people and other cultures are serious problem. Really, if you got blond hair, many Japanese will asuume you can speak English and are from the U.S.

You may be treated like a star by the people once you let them know that you can actually speak Japanese! I tell you, it's insane.