[steven]

That's great! thanks for all that. I love reading your posts because you seem to have a good (as in very reasonable) outlook on your life in Japan. Comparing it to my experience, I don't get that sense of fantasy as I do with some other things I've read online.

I know what you mean about the talking dog thing. I do get a lot less of the "wow you're good at Japanese/you can speak Japanese" these days... but I still definately get it. I could attribute that to both the fact that I still need more work as well as to the fact that I live in the inaka and so I stick out like a slice of white bread sitting in the middle of some rice fields.

"There has been a huge amount of religious awareness stuff done, so now it is automatically assumed that all foreigners follow a religion and that it should be respected. Japanese people no longer assume I am Brazilian, but more foreigners do (I don`t think I look Brazilian at all... But who knows.)"

I'm a fairly laid back person (more so in real life than on the internet) when it comes to talking to people, but I do get tired of people being so concerned about my religion. Personally, I get tired of having to care about everyone elses religion, too. I know I probably offend people by saying stuff like this, but I'm getting to the point of being anti-christian lately. That's one of the things I like about Japan more than about America... is that people are less fanatic (as far as I can tell) about stuff like that... and I really think their society benefits from it. I know most people here are buddhist, and that a lot of the older houses have REALLY expensive butsudans, but they don't seem as sensitive about everything as religious Americans do. Realizing that the door to door christian people in my neighborhood come every weekend is just annoying. I mean, how straight do I have to tell them to get them to stop coming? I think I subscribe to the live and let live idea. Don't get in my way, and I won't get in yours.