Have you been taken for an American in Japan ?

[Pachipro]

My answer would be quite often and probably more than once.

I didn't list the Canadians because it is so easy to mistake them for Americans (even between themselves abroad).

Let me ask if I may, why would you exclude Canadians from this survey as it is my experience that they are just as perturbed as any European, Australian or New Zealander in being mistaken for an American? In fact I have known some Europeans in Japan who said that if they didn't hear the accent, just by looking at another Caucasian they wouldn't know what nationality they were. Are individual Europeans, etc., so distinguishable by looks alone?

Also, since the Japanese can rarely distinguish between accents, they will usually defer to what they know best from TV, movies and culture and that is American as it is the American culture that is ingrained into them. It doesn't make it correct or solve the problem, but that is just the way it is.

In my own case I was often asked if I was French by many Japanese, but that could be because of my French and Irish features if there is such a thing and I was not at all bothered by it. I just told them no, I am American.