I'm not sure how many people have lived in Japan, but here I go.
I was in Japan for 2 months, going to school and staying with a host family. I think one of the major problems people on this forum are having with Japan is the "racism." I'd like to touch base on this, even though I lived in Kawasaki and commuted to Yokohama/Tokyo everyday.
1) I never saw one of those "Japanese Only" signs. However, if I would've seen one, I would've been upset. A lot of people on the forum have been excusing this by saying "OH, I wouldn't like it if foreigners came to my country and blah blah blah." No, this is wrong. Pure and simple. You shouldn't excuse this at all. It's wrong. End of story. If a foreigner (who happens to be Caucasian or black) has Japanese citizenship, they are still discriminated against in these places. That is just plain wrong. What Debito Arudou did was the correct thing to do.
Debito Arudou - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2) Japanese people have a lot of so-called stereotypes for different nationalities. Fact of the matter is, if you're country is not by Japan or English speaking country, they probably don't know about it (with exception of Italy, France, and Germany). Most of the stereotypes are good. The people I was around, had no problem whatsoever with anyone. One of the host brothers even started dating a Korean exchange student. And the most popular exchange student was one from Korea. They did tend to point and stare, but that was because they were curious about the exchange students.
My experience in Japan was amazing. I didn't have a problem whatsoever. None of the foreign exchange students did. We often went in groups and got lost in Shibuya and Shinjuku, but we still were treated nicely by all store owners. It was a good experience. I love Japan, moreso than when I first started taking Japanese about 3 years ago. (Btw, I'm still in highschoool, and I went to a Japanese high school)
When I actually talked to some of the students about this stuff (because our handbook basically said that if you're not Caucasian you'll probably have stereotypes thrown at you). They all said that racism is wrong. They think black people are "sugoi" and stuff like that. I believe them. It was a very sincere talk I had with my host brother and his friends. However, whenever I went into a restaurant, they'd give me and this American-Korean girl Japanese menus. They thought I looked Okinawan, which maybe explains why no one moved when I sat down on the train. However, I commuted with 2 other guys. One of them was a red head, and they both stuck out. They never had anyone move away from them on the train. Nor did anyone ever talk down to us. When we were playing with fireworks in the park, the police came and was very VERY kind. (We didn't get in trouble, we were just making too much noise)
All in all, I never had one bad experience in Japan. I loved it. I miss it so much. I hope this might clear some things up.