[steven]

Well you have to remember one thing-- people are people. Some people get shit done quicker than others and that's the brakes. As much as we wanna be, we can't always be everyone's top priority. Looking back on my experiences, I was lucky to have most of my teachers be very quick with e-mail responses (my Japanese professors would respond as late as 3AM!!). I've had other experiences taht were quite different than that, and I always found talking to people in person is a good way to get stuff done. As long as you're polite about it it shouldn't put a negative image on yourself. It's too bad that you can't see them in person because I totally understand your frustration. It's a very important thing for you and it sounds like someone somewhere could be putting it on the backburner (or not relaying information that has already been attained).

I think it's good that you understand that you have to internalize things like "passive form". By internalizing it, that means not thinking of the English passive form when speaking in Japanese. I think for the most part, the passive form usually sounds ridiculous in English, especially where it is used in Japanese. When I first heard of the "passive form" in Japanese, I wasn't clear on what that meant in Engilsh to be quite honest. I thought since I don't really use it in English then I wouldn't need it in Japanese, because all I really wanted to do was express my thoughts (which were in English) in Japanese, after all. Unfortunately it's more complicated than that, though. It took me a LONG time to get over that kind of thinking, but to really "internalize" a language, you have to kind of ditch your native langauge's way of thinking (at least while you speak Japanese or your L2).

"Personally for me, I'd rather them send a denial letter and reasons why, but I understand that's a cultural thing and that will take some time getting used to."
I know what you mean with this one... that kind of thing has happened in America many times as well I'm sure. That's why it's good to have a backup plan (or more than one for that matter). That helps with not being what is essentially held captive to someone elses decision making.

As far as whether or not this kind of thing occurs frequently in Japan or not... I'd say it's safe to say that it does. I'm not sure if it happens more in Japan than it does in America, but I'd be willing to bet that Japan has a marginal edge. I hope other people on here post about their experiences with this to help paint a fuller picture.

I don't know if I'd say this is due to "lack of life experience"... I mean, I doubt we're that far apart in age. While I personally don't have much experience with it in America, I can say that "connections in Japan" are important. Recommendation letters are highly regarded and show that someone who is "high up" and "busy" took the time to write about you (even though it may not be 100% praise!). I've also noticed more of the "if other people like it, then I will too" mentality here than in America. I sense that that style of thinking might carry over to recommendations word of mouth or otherwise. Sometimes a little bit of cajolling is what it takes no matter what language you're dealing with. You just have to watch your approach.

But yea... we all have our perceptions of how people act in a society. All you can do is take what the people around you do and decide that's how society is. If you take any one person, they're not going to line up perfectly with that perception however close they may be. How people act is basically an approximation of what is "normal", so it might be unrealistic to hold Japanese people to what we've read in books to the "t", but it's certainly worth making observations for ourselves and reading up on this kind of thing to help give yourself a closer approximation of how people will act. I'm in the line of thinking that this kind of study can only iprove language ability. Whether this applies to this situation in particular, again though, is questionable!