Loved this article. I spent a few weeks in Japan on a pilgrimage, living in Japanese homes. That length of time does not tell you a whole lot, and your article filled in several gaps for me. But it was enough to experience the incredible warmth of the Japanese in some arenas (to this day, I can't explain to myself their inhuman cruelty toward the Chinese before and during World War II). But it was also long enough to feel the exclusion by the people once I stopped being a celebrity to them. I am still attracted to the Japanese people, but they are also a mystery to me.