me if I had found that people didn't want to sit next to me in Japan. "No", I said. "Not once." I try not to make any huge generalisations when I talk about Japan or Japanese people but, while in Japan, I never once felt like people were being racist towards me. However, I also tried my best to fit in and not stand out as the obvious foreigner in the room. I made efforts to communicate in Japanese (and was only bemused, not offended, when people insisted on speaking to me in English), and I learnt about Japanese etiquette so as to try not to offend anyone with my Western ways. I accepted from the very first moment that I was a foreigner living in their country, and that if anyone should be adapting it should be me. I also accepted that no matter what I did I would always be the foreigner, and would always be different to the Japanese around me. In a strange way, I guess it helps that I have dark hair -- I don't stand out quite as much as a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl might... or a black girl. People will, naturally, notice you if you stand out so much, so I guess I was lucky in that respect. But, as a large girl, I did feel that I stood out at times, and often felt like the 'fat foreigner', clumsily stumbling around, sweating and doing things wrong. I've been trying to work