"For a foreigner, even writing hiragana is amazing."

Gee, thanks.

And is it just me, or do some Japanese people have a mental block that
prevents them from believing that a gaijin can read or write Japanese
-- even if the ability is shown to them multiple times?

It's even funnier when they forget to be surprised for a minute.  I
was looking at this register of new babies in our town's newsletter,
and the teacher holding the thing was commenting on a few names that
she had never seen before.  I commented that one seemed like a good
choice because of the kanji they used (kokoro and atatakai).  At first
she started to respond in agreement -- but then suddenly the lightbulb
went on and she remembered to patronize the gaijin ("sugoi! kanji no
imi mo wakaru!").  I've had this happen on a few other instances when
I was asking a question about something -- they start to give the
answer but then remember "oh wait, I can't acknowledge the actual
reading ability of the gaijin by responding to his question, I have to
patronize him instead -- that way I can pretend that he doesn't really
know anything and feel secure in my bubble!"

Today someone said "eego sugoi jouzu desu ne!" -- I thought she was
joking at first but sadly, she was not.  

Then there are all the pathetic "even Japanese people can't read this"
lines, but that's enough for this post.

-Chris