But we're speaking Japanese!　日本語喋ってるんだけど

If your Japanese is near-perfect you can tell them to let you enter the "no foreigners" nightclubs and bars claiming you were born and raised in Japan. Just pick a place as your hometown. If it were for racist reasons, they wouldn't let you enter simply because you don't "look Japanese". Not to say the issue doesn't exist at all. Just that it isn't prevalent. If it didn't exist, there wouldn't be this comedy sketch about it: [this video] Although the scenario I experienced was that the waitress asked my Japanese friend what I wanted to order rather than asking me. Assuming I didn't speak Japanese. At most places I ordered food at - they would ask me what I wanted directly. So I wouldn't say it's a common experience either. Just that it does happen and it's because few foreigners speak Japanese! It's a habitual thing, not a racist thing. It happened more in the touristy parts of Tokyo than anywhere else (even in the touristy parts of Kyoto!)

I've lived in Japan for 14 years, and I'm doing a startup here. In my experience, if you stay in Japan for more than a year, you go through several phases. The first phase is confusion. Why am I being treated differently, even though I'm doing and saying the same things as another Japanese person. The second phase that quickly follows is anger. This is bullshit! I know my accent and pronunciation is correct! Why are they saying they don't understand me! WTF! The third is dull acceptance. You're not going to change Japan. They're not like this because they're bad people. They're just inexperienced with foreigners and foreign things, and they're overcompensating and trying to be nice in the way they think is nice. The final stage is fun. This is the best stage. You understand all the social patterns and why everything is happening, so you just relax and start enjoying it. When you go into a restaurant and order in Japanese and the waiters response is "I can't speak English! Sorry!" you respond in Japanese "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Is there anyone here who speaks Japanese?" This often (not always) has the interesting effect of changing the "foreigners cannot speak or understand Japanese" mindset, if only for a moment. Sounds like you're in between stages two and three. It gets better. To quickly respond to your list: 1) It's your face. It's nothing personal. They're just trying to be accommodating. 2) My typical response is "I've been using chopsticks since I've been four, since

"Japanese people will rarely call out any grammar/pronunciation error" & "In Japan, if you speak Japanese well, eventually they stop forgiving you as "oh, he's just a foreigner", and they hold you to similar standards." There is also something else I notice: some people will decide they will not understand you because you look/are foreign no matter how hard you try or even if you don't make not many mistakes. There is a famous video about that[1] but this is not limited to Japan, I also saw it in France too with foreigners trying to speak French. Also even in a cultural area there can be wide differences. Almost all Mandarin speakers I interact with (be they Taiwanese, mainlanders or huaqiao) seemed quite happy to talk their language with me. The Japanese not so much. I even sometimes hide my Japanese language ability and play it dumb to fit more in a group. And I plan not to expose a too great ability the day I got it unless necessary precisely too avoid being judged to harsh by the local standards. [1] [this video]