I wish I had a yen or two for every time I've been told: "You will never be accepted in Japan."

I first heard it from my relatives. None of them knew any Japanese people, nor had they ever heard of pachinko, sushi or the Katsura Detached Palace in Kyoto. In fact, they had never lived outside the United States. Yet they were intent on convincing me that settling in Japan was tantamount to self-banishment: instant and eternal alienation.

"What is the business of acceptance anyway? Accepted as what?" I asked one of my relatives after I had spent my first year in Kyoto.