starlady | People in Japan give me things, one of a continuing series (Reply)

It's true, people in Japan give me things. I think it's a combination of a) me being a white girl b) that being unusual and/or white privilege c) the assumption that white people are kind of clueless d) people being nice in greater or lesser proportions depending on location and circumstances. Things I've been given, a short list off the top of my head:

Umbrellas
A hiking pole at the top of Mt. Fuji (I left it at the trail entrance when I got down so that someone else could use it on the way up)
Sandwiches
Tea and tea sweets, in exchange for some English conversation (that was in Nara in June 2011 when foreigners were really scarce)
The most recent example: on Monday we wound up in a hole-in-the-wall izakaya in suburban Tokyo after the ramen shop we'd been aiming for closed early because of the Coming of Age Day holiday. We walked in and the owner immediately gave us some of his original art and started telling us his life story--he's 78 now and he only started doing art at age 70 after he got out of the hospital, where he'd been for a illness. There were three of us, and he gave each of us a small framed print! Luckily one of the people with me, despite not speaking Japanese, did art and had some on his phone to show, and we were all able to have a conversation in two languages about various things. The owner and his wife were very nice; even the drunk guy in the corner of the bar (there's always a drunk guy in the corner of the bar), in whose line of sight I placed myself on the theory that I've dealt with plenty of them in my time, was a particularly pleasant and friendly version of that guy. He really liked that I told him to be careful on his way home in Japanese on his way out. I still find that people in Tokyo live up to the standoffish stereotype (I'll take the snobs of Kyoto over the cold Tokyoites any day; Kyoto people are very friendly in my experience, but then I can be slightly snobby myself), but there are many exceptions, particularly among the more shitamachi types. Also the food at this place was pretty tasty, which was nice.