Meet Loco: blogger, author — and racist?

A glance of distrust on the sidewalk. A seemingly harmless question. An empty seat on an otherwise packed train.

To blogger and author Baye McNeil, these are the moves of a dance — one that he came to know all too well, but one that nobody else seemed to be noticing. It revolves around how Japanese people view and react to non-Japanese people. McNeil, writing as "Loco," dissects every move of the dance in his blog and in the book "Hi! My Name is Loco and I'm a Racist."

The book, which performed well in several categories on Amazon, grew out of his blog, Loco in Yokohama (www.locoinyokohama.com). The blog was where he first developed his literary alter ego and started chronicling what he was experiencing. Turns out, a lot of other people have been quietly noticing the complicated interactions, too, and are tuning in to see how Loco makes sense of — and makes peace with — the dance of interracial relations in Japan.