Very typical gaijin view of Japan. Its unfortunate that most people only ever see this perspective of Japan, perhaps because the language and social barriers are still too great after all these years. More unfortunate that most people in this thread seem to agree with the original post. Apparently most people never get beyond talking about completely meaningless talk with a Japanese person, which is why they are perceived as being shallow. I can tell you that the boring and shallow conversations that you are probably having with a Japanese person, despite the apparent enthusiasm expressed by them, is totally reciprocal and they are totally bored too. With so many foreigners in Japan you would think there has been some bridge across the cultures, but apparently not yet.

In some way, the isolation that this creates for Japanese can be constructive as it means they can go and do the weird and wonderful things that they do, without judgement. Once there is understanding between western and japanese cultures, then anything that anyone does has to be "good" under western values as well. That day will probably be the end of true uniqueness of Japan, which would also be a pity.

So theres good and bad in this, probably more good than bad actually.