Perspective on the US from an expat working in China

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by slang

Do people there ( each respective location ).....

* - Seem to want to be friends, if only for the novelty of having a foreign pal and what doors that might open for them both in country and what I may be able to do for them in your country

* - Seem to sincerely want to be friends and offer their attention just as they would to anyone else there.

* - Seem genuinely friendly but don't approach me outside of my professional environment. They don't invite me "out for beers" ( or rice or whatever )

* - Seem wholely uninterested in me as person but are very interested in what I'm doing here.

* - Seem hostile in some way but without any type of personal gaff or confrontation initiating that hostility. They don't like _____'s and I am one of them.

Of course the main answer is a mix of pretty much everything.
I haven't been here very long and haven't had a great deal of interaction with Japanese people outside of language classes, so my answers are a compound of my own experience, reports from my friends, and a few relevant books.

The first cultural rule here is politeness. It is very unusual (and therefore quite startling) to have someone be deliberately rude. People are normally very wary of saying what they really think ("honne" in Japanese) and usually just say what is polite ("tatemae"). So getting to what people really think/feel about foreigners is difficult.
There is a little bit of staring behaviour. Children and rural dwellers seldom if ever see foreigners, and so - especially the kids - look at you as a novelty. It's not hostile staring though, not a "what are you doing here, foreign devil", just a "wow, don't see too many like that". Japan is still very racially homogeneous; blond, big nosed fellows like me do stand out.
High and junior high school kids stare in a shy, endearing way. Ohhh look! how interesting, a foreigner - I dare you to talk to it ... no you do! no, you! Harro! giggles, run away...
Uni students like to act all sophisticated and international, and some urban trendies try to act like gangstas, greeting me with "yo, man" and stuff. Its hard to stop myself from laughing, especially when they spoil the gangsta image with, for example, neatly trimmed eyebrows.

Adults are usually at least polite. Some shop staff don't want to make the effort dealing with my hopeless Japanese, which seems a bit rude, but quite often strangers will strike up a conversation on trains and such. Maybe they just want to practice their English, or maybe they're just being hospitable. The novelty of a foreign pal is, i think, often a factor. Nevertheless, there can be genuine friendships, if you find the people you click with.

However, the Japanese culture is still very exclusionist. Foreigners are welcome to visit - mostly - but are not welcome to assimilate. In Hokkaido Highway BluesWill Ferguson gives many examples, including a case where the press hailed the election of a Chinese man as the head of a PTA as a great stride. He was "Chinese" ... born in Japan, father born in Japan, GRANDFATHER migrated. He only speaks Japanese. But he's still "Chinese".

There are a tiny, tiny number of ultra-nationalists, who drive black minibuses with rising sun flags and huge (but very low-fi) sound systems about the city, blaring painful old militaristic songs and political drivel. Meh, find me a country that doesn't have some like them.
But there is a much more widespread streak of more polite xenophobia and racism. Ishihara, the mayor of Tokyo, has been re-elected despite repeatedly saying things I find bloody outrageous. Some classics: preparing for the soccer world cup, he said we should build more orphanages because there would be lots of unwanted babies because of the influx of foreigners who would rape all the women. Or that if there was a big earthquake, we'd need to immediately deploy the army to shoot all the Korean Tokyoites, who would naturally begin rioting. (After the last big Tokyo earthquake in the 1930s, the Koreans behaved but were frequently lynched by Japanese mobs who accused them of poisoning the wells.) There are plenty of other examples, not just from him.

So, reviewing your choices, I'd have to be very boring and say "yes a bit" to all of them. Some people are genuinely friendly, some interested in the generic foreigner, some politely hospitable, some awkwardly shy, some politely hostile, and a very few openly hostile.
Maybe my experiences are very unrepresentative: I am only planning a limited stay, haven't learned the language, haven't built much of a social network. Most of the views here are second hand.