Perks of Being a White Girl in Japan

Since I'm in an enormous metropolitan city, I didn't expect to get all the attention I have been receiving. I have to say it is fabulous. I feel like a movie star! When I carried the mikoshi at the summer festival, people crowded around me to take photos with me. People also blatantly stare at me on the subways or in the department stores. Many of my Asian friends ask if I find it creepy but I honestly love the attention. So far, in the two and a half weeks that I have been here, these two situations have happened to me:

1.) I rushed to the train to grab a seat for my 30 minute commute to Waseda University. As I tried to get comfortable, an old woman hobbled onto the train. I knew I needed to offer her my seat. I quickly stood up and said, "どうぞ、どうぞ" but she refused to sit down. Feeling guilty, I kindly thanked her and sat back down. The old woman immediately began telling me that Americans were always extremely nice (which shocked me to hear this). She then offered me a whole bag of warm food. Although I kept telling her that I couldn't accept it, after 20 minutes of refusal in my broken Japanese, I finally gave in. When I got to my station, I thanked her multiple times and ran off to tell me friends. I opened up the warm bag and peeled back the thin sheet of wood wrapping to find 6 giant bun-like sweets filled with bean paste. We collectively decided to eat it together and it if was poisoned then o'well.

They were really yummy but all five of us couldn't eat all six of the sweets! I was therefore nominated to take the last sweet to the cutest boy in the room. When I went up to him and said, "どうぞ、どうぞ", he couldn't refuse and he kindly ate the whole thing. 

2.) While walking around Waseda University in search of my friends, a young woman came up to me and asked if I was a foreign exchange student. When I said yes, she asked if I wanted to be on a TV show called お願いランキング (Onegai Ranking). Well, turns out that I had my first day of Japanese class during the time that they were filming so I couldn't go. 

When I told my Japanese friends about it they freaked out. Turns out its a really popular show and they were doing a segment on which kind of stationary foreigners liked. I am SO UPSET that I didn't say yes. It could have been my big break as a TV star! But it has only been two and a half weeks so hopefully I will have more opportunities :)