necoandjeff wrote:

> People in Nagoya have a bad tendency
> to stare down foreigners (and otherwise treat them like complete freaks) in
> a way that people in Tokyo do not.

In my experience people in Tokyo tend to look down on everyone who
isn't from Tokyo. Or at least they ignore them.

> And half the time they don't even have
> the decency to look away when you look back at them. They just continue
> staring like they're at the zoo looking into the gorilla cage.

The shame! I hate it when I'm ogling some Japanese dude and he doesn't
have the manners to not look me in the eye.

> When I go to
> someplace like Itoigawa, I exect that kind of behavior, and it doesn't
> bother me. When I go to the fourth largest city in the country, with a not
> so insignificant population of foreigners, I don't. What makes a hick in my
> mind has a lot to do with his or her bility to accept someone different than
> they are and treat them with respect, whether that person lives in the most
> remote corner of Louisiana or the middle of New York City.
> 
So it's respectful to not look someone in the eye. Right?

John W.