You're a white American and the Japanese are so polite that even if you deserve public castration for being a total jackass they'll simply say nothing, ask you a couple of meaningless questions about your hometown to change the topic and never speak to you again after that. As a westerner you'll likely interpret this as passiveness or "western-worship", whereas in Japan it's something different, changing or dropping a topic mid-way signals both that a) I have no respect or interest in what you say and b) I've just shown you up to the whole group as a shithead. Calling someone out engages them at some level and it implies egotism on the Japanese side, whereas pretending they never spoke is a dismissal of the sum of their character.
there
Amen, my brother!
And shouldn't it be like that, EVERYWHERE? Why DO we have to "Get Up Into Peep's Faces?"
THAT philosophy, though I only have a SHRED of a piece to hold onto and try to build upon, is what I think of Nirvana/Atlantis/that other place in the Tibetan mountains in that really famous book that, CRAP, I can't remember the name of, but all anyway.
THAT is savior faire, proper etiquette, the Creme de la Creme of Social Grace.
It's really too bad that we can't, as human beans, look at ALL different societies, and do a Master List of who figured out how to do to What, the PERFECT way,
and THEN,
adopt those mores!
Let us look at history to see what DID work, and wtf DIDN't, you know? And then, do the things that WORK, and leave all these crap ideas behind, where they BELONG, 'cuz: Sorry, Charlie ~ Not ALL Tuna Gets To Be Starkist! And if it Started Out as a FUKTARD Idea? Odds are it will end in disaster.
I'm not much into disaster, myself.