D38: You'll never really fit in there...

I'm going to tell you something funny about living in Japan. When you're a foreigner there, you are a gaijin (outsider - originally barbarian, etc.) They have a polite term for politically correct use - gaikokujin - which means 'honorable barbarian', but it isn't used that often. There are about 10,000 Japanese for every foreigner living in Japan, so gaijin stick out like sore thumbs. And despite gestures made to the contrary, it's a very insular country. You never really fit in as a foreigner - even if you've lived there for years. In fact, there are many natively Korean families that have been living in Japan for several generations who are still NOT considered Japanese. Unlike countries like America in which you can become assimilated after a period of time, this is never the case in Japan. Being Japanese means being born ethnically Japanese and IN Japan. In fact, if a Japanese woman marries a foreigner, her first name is no longer written in Japanese. If you look at movie credits in Japanese films you will see a number of first names that are clearly Japanese but they are written in English. Why is that? Anyone know? It seems harsh to me...