[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by dogsbody70

Surely the Occupation did have a huge effect on Japan and the japanese.

You missed out on my emphasis. I do not believe that the occupation has much of an impact of the current opinion Japanese people have of Americans. Of course it had an effect. But an effect on the modern feelings people have toward Americans? Very little to none.

some may forget it-- but I imagine there are many descendents of the armed forces and Japanese women from that time and as OKINAWA seem to have to bear with an ongoing military presence that must also have an effect.

somewhere on this thread someone mentioned that there are many children born/ American/ Japanese---

I do not know the numbers, but think of it this way - 500 children is "many children"... Japan`s population is over 127 million. Even 5000 children wouldn`t have much of an effect on the ethnic background and on society as a whole. Even the 150,000 or so western expatriates in Japan now are really a drop in the bucket.

America won the war so the American influence must have had strong repercussions and many changes than pre war when the soldiers etc were willing to die for their Emperor.

I would say the influences were more in industry than culture.
A bit off topic, but I have yet to speak to anyone who was willing to die for the emperor during the war. For country, for family, for glory - sure - but I think that assuming that people were ready to die for the emperor is a bit of leftover propaganda. It would be along the lines of saying those who fought from the US were "willing to die for the president" - or those fighting from the UK were "willing to die for the king".

I also strongly feel that history should never be forgotten because how else to avoid the same thing happening over and over.

Japan spends an incredible amount of time on WWII in school - I don`t believe that it is forgotten so much as not having a direct effect on peoples feelings and attitudes now.

Considering many Europeans are White-- why on earth should the Japanese think they are automatically American?

I think that in the situations where this does happen, it is more because the exposure people have to white foreigners is almost entirely American. US television programs, movies from the US, and the preference Japanese schools have for US English leads to the majority of the native English speaking teachers being from the US. For a child, every foreigner you meet being American will naturally lead to thinking the next you meet is also from there. But, as I said before, I have never really had this problem.
I think it`s more of an issue that Japanese tend to assume all foreigners speak English, regardless of where they are from.

Originally Posted by GoNative

This makes a big difference to their behaviour I think because if you're only here short term it's easy not to care how you effect others around you or how you are perceived. When you've committed yourself to a place long term and invested time and money into the local community you're much more likely to be respectful and caring of that community.

I think you have hit this on the nose when it comes to poor behavior in Japan. Personally, I could really care less about people getting drunk, etc etc... It`s the issues with people who see Japan as nothing more than a playground with no connection to their real life - so no consequences to their behavior. I think this is an issue with tourists in a lot of places, but in Japan is especially bad as it happens with people here for over a year. I would say that short term tourists are generally much better about things. It is the people who are here long enough to find things they dislike but who aren`t here long enough to understand most things that seem to be the worst. Doing things that are blatantly offensive, not paying bills, intimidating people for the fun of it, etc etc. As they aren`t just random tourists it`s much harder to just roll your eyes at them.
They don`t experience any real consequences for their behavior - they just have their fun then hop on home and leave the fallout for the long term residents who DO care and DO invest in their communities. THIS is what makes me generally very critical of other foreigners in Japan.