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Understandable. When my family and I returned from living in Europe the amount of open space around us literally caused me to take a deep breath and relax. An "ahhh, home!" moment. The width of the roads, size of parking spaces, openness of aisles in stores, everything made me realize that I had felt, mostly unconsciously, compressed into a claustrophobic box by an environment that native Europeans are used to. I would suspect when they come to America many if not most have the mirror image reaction to our open space, a sub awareness agoraphobic unease.

Japan is several orders of magnitude more compressed than Europe. Personal space, like that of a crushed commuter on a rush hour Shinkansen subway car in Tokyo, must be found inward. Such commuters can be seen standing in place supported by all the bodies pressed up around them with eyes closed as if they're taking a nap. Interior spaces of homes, offices, restaurants, bars, are all efficiently miniature. And unless one is raised in that compressed reality it is stressful.

Japanese-Americans are no different than any of us whose ancestors came from someplace else. I've got a colleague (San-Sei, third generation J-A) who felt completely alien when she visited Japan, and had the added burden of dealing with the reactions of locals to whom she looked as Japanese as them but reacted almost like Donald Sutherland in the final scene of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" when she opened her mouth.

I know what you mean. This family’s daughter was a real beauty and I saw an interview of her on TV after she had won a beauty contest.

Seeing an obviously Japanese girl speak with a strong Southern accent was almost unsettling.