Thanks for your explanation, Mad pierrot. That is exactly how I feel about the treatment of foreigners in Japan. There doesn't seem to be any difference at all between central Tokyo and rural Wakayama. Japanese are the same regarding their attitude to foreigners everywhere (as far as I know, from hearing stories from people living al around Japan).

The solution I have found to the "being treated like a retarded" situations is to make them feel as if they are the one to have asked an utterly stupid question, so as to culpabilize them on their ignorance and hope they don't reiterate (even with someone else) later.

For example, if they ask me if there are 4 seasons in my country, I smile and ask them whether they don't know that all European countries had four seasons (and I think to myself "haven't you learn about geography and worldwide climates at school to ask such dumb questions ?").

When somebody is surprised that I like sushi, I have to explain to them that (according to our polls), sushi is the favourite Japanese food of more than half of the foreigners, and that indeed, the most common type of Japanese restaurants in Western countries is sushi bars.

When I explained my irritation to such questions to my wife, and asked her why even her friends (who know how long I have been in Japan, etc.) ask me the "can you use chopsticks and eat sushi" questions, she replied that "they were just trying to be nice". "So", I continued, "why are they doubting my ability to use chopsticks just because I am a foreigner. That's very insulting, not really what I'd call 'trying to be nice'." She claimed not to have thought about that before. Anyway, that doesn't help improve my opinion that the vast majority of the Japanese, as polite as they may be, are shallow and act in a stereotypical manner, as if they were all robots using an identical programming.

But what I find the most shocking is when Japanese think that they invented everything they use, see or hear in everyday life in Japan, when in fact so many things are Western. In the same way as Mad Pierrot explained how some Japanese don't seem to know that Winnie the Pooh is English and not Japanese, many Japanese think that many Western things are originally Japanese (but are not). Here are a few examples that spring to mind :

- New Year's cards (nengajo). I heard so many times "In Japan, we have a tradition of sending greeting cards for the New Year; what about your country ?". In fact, the Japanese copied the Western tradition of Xmas and New Year wishes. Even the date of the 1st January as the New Year is from the Western Calendar (since late Roman times, as Janus was the 'Roman god of presided over doors and beginnings', and marking the beginning of the year). The traditional Japanese New Year was not on 01/01, and it is still not on 1 Jan. in China, Thailand, India, etc. where they keep celebrating their own traditional New Year.

- many famous pieces of music used in Japanese TV (esp. commercials) are in fact classical music from Europe, or traditional folk or military music from Europe or the USA. An incredible amount of music on Japanese TV is not Japanese, but as they often rearranged them, sometimes with Japanese lyrics, many Japanese think that this or that music is Japanese. For example my wife thought that "Jupiter" (from Gustav Holst' Planets) was Japanese music, when it's some 100 year-old English music.