Perhaps, but the discrimination one feels living in Japan is more about the sum total of a bunch of separately innocent actions that, taken together, feel kind of crappy.

I've lived in Japan for about ten years now and certainly sympathize with the author. It's a great place to live, but there are still things that just plain suck about it, too.

It's kind of like this. Imagine, if every time you started a conversation with someone they, just once, wrinkled their nose. If it happened a single time, you might not even notice it, and even if you did it's not really a big deal.

However, after it happens day in and day out with pretty much every person you interact with, it's easy to start doubting yourself, "Am I making a weird face, too? Do I stink? Am I the one causing this for some reason? What's going on?"

The same sort of thing happens with the empty seat. It's relatively harmless as an individual instance. However, after it happens a thousand times, after having anything you share get interpreted, for the thousandth time, as a This Country vs Your Country Compare and Contrast session, after getting ignored in favor of people trying out their English on you for the thousandth time, then it just gets a litte exhausting.

Any of those things is fine in isolation, but the straw that broke the camel's back is the same as the million that didn't.