Living in a country for 12 years makes it a part of you in some small way. I wouldn't dream, for instance, of treading through a house wearing shoes now. Is there any thing more barbaric? Eating rice with a fork instead of chopsticks feels funny. And in that self-deprecating Japanese way, I sometimes have the urge to say "sorry" instead of "thanks" when strangers go out of their way to help.

But although I emerged from my immersion in Japan just a few months ago -- I now live in South Korea -- surprisingly little was left sticking to me. That is the kind of place Japan is: it doesn't make pearls out of the irritating foreigners who intrude, but it tries to wrap them in lacquer so they won't cause too much disruption.

Foreigners are immobilized with politeness and condescending smiles. That's why Japan seems to be an exquisitely polite place, if polite means scrupulously observing the niceties of social convention. But if polite means making the visitor really feel at home, Japan falls short. The foreigner walks through seeing things, touching and squeezing them, but never really breathing in the atmosphere. It is as if the country thinks the foreigner won't be able to withstand the shock of coming in direct contact with the country's dirty, germ-ridden underbelly. When Japanese encounter a foreigner, up snaps a barrier that dictates the rest of the exchange. What I found rare in Japan is the encounter between a person who happens to be Japanese and a person who happens not to be -- two human beings just hanging out for awhile. In Japan, you always seem to be acting out a little kabuki play entitled, "A JAPANESE MEETS A GAIJIN."

Many things changed for the better during my time in Japan. When I arrived, taxi drivers would go into paroxysms of praise whenever a foreign customer uttered so much as a "konnichi wa." Now cabbies almost seem to expect visitors to speak their language. No longer is it common for foreigners to be praised for using chopsticks, as if nobody outside Japan had ever eaten in a Japanese restaurant, or a Chinese one. But the silliness persists. Behind it is a curious mix of insecurity and arrogance that lies at the heart of the country's troubled relationship with foreigners over the past century. The kernel of racial smugness and condescension that led Japan to think its Emperor should rule Asia, if not the whole world, hasn't entirely disappeared. The country has caught up with the West, but it is still chasing some chimerical sense of self-confidence.

I met many impressive people in Japan, particularly young people, who "get" the country's problems. The younger generation has traveled more, and rubbed shoulders with more people outside the Japanese oyster. They have largely lost the sense that the world revolves around Japan and "Japaneseness," whatever that is. Some of them can converse comfortably with foreigners, without throwing up the barriers. But it is young Japanese who are reading comic books glorifying Japan's deadly rampage through Asia in the first half of the last century. It is hard to be sure if they are drawing their sense of confidence from the right place.

I moved to Seoul this year, giving me a new and particular perch from which to view Japan. Korea isn't known for its friendliness toward foreigners either. Before I came I was told the story of the foreigner who got beaten up on the subway after touching the bottom of the woman beside him -- it didn't matter that the woman was his wife. So far (touch wood) I've been left alone, although I keep my hands to myself on the train.