For the eight years I lived in Japan, I was charmed and amazed by white privilege. At a time when white males in America were increasingly called out by minorities, Tokyo seemed like a throwback to the 1950s — a bizarro world where shop staff bowed to me, employers assumed competence based on my origin, and young women swooned for "Charisma Man," their hearts aflutter if I opened the door for them.
Some Japanese friends have asked me, with the curiosity of the underdog exploring a top-dog secret, "What is it like to be special? Do you enjoy it?" My answer was yes, sort of. If, no matter what, you'll be a vessel for people's projections on race, I'll take skills and sophistication over colonialism and mansplaining any day.
In the West, white privilege can be more of an absence — less obstruction, less slighting and snubbing, at times less outright suspicion — and thus it may not be felt overtly. In Japan, however, it was tangible — as in "This treatment is special because I am white." In return, my main form of political activism was to treat Japanese people as truly equal. Quite a few of them seemed surprised, unfamiliar with the experience.