Generally speaking...

"All Americans eat hamburgers", said Naofumi.
"No", said Miyoshi, followed by a pause as he closed his eyes to think of a"free answer" to the drill question. "No. They also eat hog dogs".

I sighed quietly. "Ok, right, when I said think of an answer that challenges the generalization that your partner makes, that wasn't really what I had in mind". I thought about it for a moment, and followed up: "A lot of Japanese seem amazed that I can use chopsticks even though I'm not Japanese. They say 'Oh, wow, the foreigner is so skillful with the hashi, look at him. Kuin-san, where did you learn to use hashi?.' You see, Miyoshi, when people think that all foreigners must not know how to use chopsticks, that's a generalization, and they are often not true. I can use chopsticks. I am not Japanese. Understand?"
"Ah... But many Americans eat hambugers"
"Miyoshi, where did you learn to use a fork? You are Japanese, but you use it so well!"
And so it goes. I can never decide if I love or hate lesson D46, "questioning generalizations".

Tokyo is probably one of the only major cities in the world that doesn't make try to lure tourists into its city limits. There's a glut of English almost anywhere you go here, but like I've said before, it's not aimed at English speakers, for the most part. There are day tours, and of course, there's Roppongi, where the gaijin expats unite in the bars and clubs every day, but Roppongi isn't a tourist destination. If it is, it's only so in a peripheral sense. On one hand, I see ads for "Kokusai bijinesu" (international business) english classes and classes in general, which seem to aim at internationalizing Japan, but on the other hand, they don't welcome foriegners here in many other senses (that is not to say they are inhospitable. Very much the opposite is true. They just aren't interested in having a bunch of tall-nosed gaijin running around Tokyo). I am here to create more economic opportunity for Japanese by means of teaching them English, the lingua franca of the world economy. Or, more commonly, because they want to watch Hollywood movies in English or "talk to foreigners". It's all in their student files, and "talk to foreigners" comes up as a study goal in an eerily consistent way. No one's really sure what it means, except it seems to illustrate the Japan/Gaijin dichotomy that is so firmly entrenched in so many minds here. The argument goes something like this: If you are not Japanese, you are a foreigner. All foreigners speak English. Therefore, if you are not Japanese, you speak English. I sometimes feel like a baboon in a cultural zoo here, I'm a person in a vague sense, but children are afraid of or fascinated by me, and I'm always the last person on the train to have the seat next to me taken. But at least I'm starting to settle in.