For our Japanese readers : Things you should not say to Westerners

[Glenski]

Do I think Japan is a perfect place? No. Neither is my home country.
Do I dislike either one? Pretty general blanket statement, to which I will also say no.

Are there elements I dislike about each? Yup.

Overall, I'm quite happy living here.

[leander]

Much appreciation for your replies to my previous post.

Glenski, Annubis, Nanook, FrustratedDave and Ashikaga, I found your posts to be particularly helpful.

Below is a rough draft of my abstract for the presentation/workshop that I am planning:

This presentation will cover problems that sometimes occur when native Japanese attempt to communicate with foreigners. Many of these problems occur unbeknownst to the Japanese person involved, but may lead to further trouble as communication continues. Not only will this workshop help attendants avoid these problems, but it will moreover give them strategies to improve communication and gain confidence when speaking with people from other countries. Both native Japanese and non-Japanese are welcome to attend and contribute their own ideas and experiences. The workshop will be done in a combination of Japanese and English.

As the second to last sentence implies, I would like to be more of a discussion facilitator than a lecturer, bringing out the ideas and opinions of anyone who cares to voice them. The presentation is open to the public, but will probably consist mostly of middle-aged Japanese people with perhaps a few college students. Hopefully, other foreigners will also show up, and hopefully at least some of those foreigners will not be white males like myself, so that we can learn about how others experience communication in Japan differently (or similarly). I am also hoping that at least some of the Japanese people in attendance will have had experience living abroad, so that they can relate issues they had when communicating with people in those countries.

I do plan, as Glenski suggested, to "keep it light". I agree with FrustratedDave (and probably most, if not all, of the others here) that such things as "日本語上手！" to a ”はじめまして” are seldom if ever born of ill-intent and are not as big of a deal as they seem to have become on this thread. As FD and some others seem to suggest, at least some of the fault lies with foreigners who negatively interpret what has been said.

I think I will begin the presentation by relating a funny parallel experience that a Japanese native had when living abroad and then get the audience to look the other way around, putting themselves in the shoes of foreigners living here in Japan. Ashikaga, I would love to read more about situations where you felt a little irked by the assumptions others seem to have made about you during your 20+ years in the States (e.g. the "sorry we only have regular tea" incident).

This post is getting long, so I leave off here for the time being.

Thanks again and looking forward to more discussion.