Micro aggressions or Othering? Remind foreigners "you are not Japanese."  

My two cents: you know how in Japanese Starbucks they sometimes offer free drinks in small cups to customers who are sitting at the Starbucks? Just marketing a new drink perhaps. Anyway I was at a Starbucks and 22 drinks were prepared for 22 seated customers. All the Japanese customers were offered a drink and there was one drink remaining that was supposed to be offered to me but wasn't offered. The staff member just looked at me as I was working politely and calmly on my computer and decided not to offer me the drink and just walked off. As I'm sure long-term residents of Japan know, this is a big No-No in Japanese culture. Having lived in Japan for over 20 years that was quite shocking to me and the manager of Starbucks had no explanation at all and was quite flippant in his attitude. Secondly whilst sitting on a train in Tokyo with my quite attractive girlfriend at the time, there was only one empty seat next to me, a Japanese salaryman with two women boarded the train and one of the women said to the salary man, do you want to sit next to the foreigner? He looked at me in disgust and said to her in disgust; "no I don't want to sit next to him". For me that was a clear indication of xenophobia. Whilst I appreciate your video, I do believe they are instances of strong xenophobia here in Japan and I think it's important to be open-minded to the experiences of other foreigners and not just a small sample size being taken into consideration. Again thank you for the good video and I hope your subscribers realize that there is a significant amount of xenophobia in Japan.

Thanks for the video. It's good that you understand that japanese people try to avoid conversations and don't engage much with foreigners. If most people understood cultures from around the world and different it with really racism that would be nice. Also I would appreciate if they offered me fork, I don't know how to use chopstick 😂 maybe I will appreciate that if and when I go to japan And stay safe Paul. Hope you recover as soon as possible.

Seriously, I LOVE not having to worry about people handing me tissues! 😂😂😂 Although I have had some interesting interactions with them in the past. I've never had a problem on the train though - seems an empty seat is more important to people than me being a foreigner. Great topic, Paul!

Feel better soon, brother! Great vid!

Too cold for a walk?😎

Get well soon, Sam Neill

I'm wondering if it has to do with the instinct of being too accommodating?

Hope you feel better soon. As for microaggressions, I think you have a miss understanding. This was important in the work I do. Microaggressions are behaviors that the privileged class (White in US/JP in Japan) engage in unaware of it's effects on the people they are relating to. Because they don't need to know, they are in a position of power. As the "other" you need to know what upsets the privileged class. What you describe are classic microaggressions. It is one of the reasons microaggressions are so hard to deal with because if you bring it up the other person will say, "I don't do that deliberately." Which is true they do it in ignorance and because there is no consequence for the behavior. Sorry if that sounds like a lecture. Get well soon, love the show.