Quote Originally Posted by Maciamo
I have also noticed than young teenagers and especially children tend to be more insulting toward foreigners. It is not that they stare, point their finger and giggle (like bad-mannered children do all around the world), but listenning to their remarks, you can see how their parents or environment has already instilled them prejudice against foreigners.

...and the other stuff...
This is a mixed bag, you can be sitting on a train and some young child will sit and stare at you (and I'll make faces back, its only fair ) and thats OK, I can definitely understand it in Pookas case. Then you have the ones that ask slighty strange questions to their parents who give stranger answers back.

I helped teach 9-12 year old children a martial art and they have to be the most open and unassuming Japanese I've ever met (2nd being university students from a medical university, great people, would love to meet them all again). Apart from an initial "oh, you speak japanese" it was on, they'd just let loose with their favorite tv shows, what had happened at school that day, all the latest playground goss, and afterwards their parents would say Hi and they soon knew me and accepted me as just another person in the group, no assumptions, no special treatment, no strange questions.

I guess if you look hard enough you'll find something, but otherwise you'll just be stuck in a crappy loop...