I have been informed by some non-immigrant Japanese people that they find some Japanese immigrants living in, say, Canada or America, to have their own way of thinking (so that, "yappari" (of course, no surprise!), those people prefer being immigrants in another culture).

So sometimes I ask the question, like it's great in Japan, why do you want to be here? The reasons are various, among them things like, "I like just addressing people by their first name", or "there are people from many different countries and cultures in Canada; people are not 'the same'".

Once on the train (in Canada) I overheard some snippet of conversation among some girls about some planned event, "... minna Nihonjin dakara ikitakunai" ("I don't want to go, because everyone there will be Japanese").

I know exactly what that girl meant by that phrase and empathize with her. As as outsider of any degree (whether American born like me or simply not having fit in with the "way things are" in a Japanese group setting), it can be stifling.

>> "doing the Japanese thing" isn't a natural, subconscious thing. It's a deliberate "playing the part".

Arguably, for anyone, it always is just playing a part. Japanese seem to get this point better than some, so tend to keep in character for longer.

Basically, you're not going to say and do the right thing, if you're raised by wolves in the woods, no matter what genes you contain. It is learned.

So then whether it's acting its just a question of how deeply is the learning integrated into your personality and how it aligns with your so called temperament.