It was just an innocent wave. I looked once--no, not for me. I turned around.

But then there was giggling. I looked back. It was for me, after all.

I raised my hand and waved back toward the open train door and the three sports-uniform-clad junior high girls. They let out a shriek of laughter the echoed around the station. I decided I would amplify things a bit, so I walked over and joined them on their train.

As soon as I began moving toward them their excitement began to go up exponentially, and as I stepped on to the train, 10 of their friends swarmed around me, waiting to see what I would do. As I began speaking to them in their language, a few nearly fainted, and the ones who could still speak asked every possible question of me: where I was from, what I was doing in Japan, did I have a girlfriend, why was my hair strange, do all Americans look like me... etc. They were bubbling over.

This really illustrated two things: the first being that Japan is a completely homogenous place. Gaijin, foreigners, like myself, are rare. I can go out to the most populous Japanese area and so no other white people, only Japanese for hours and hours at a time. For instance, I went to Akihabara, Tokyo's "Electric City"--a place lined with storefronts selling laptop computers by the curbside, at discounted prices--and I only spotted 5 foreigners, only five. Those foreigners who saw me as well gave me a sort of silent acknowledgment, with the understanding that we belonged to a very unique club; but that's it. Gaijin never talk to each other, though it would be easy enough to approach and say, "Wow, so, we're in Tokyo, no one can understand us. Your the first white person I've seen today."

But being a rarity is good.

I like to talk, and if I'm a novelty in Tokyo, it's easy to strike up a conversation. This is the second thing I must share: that when I have no one to talk to, I challenge myself to start conversations on trains, which can be daunting as well as supremely rewarding.

How do I know I will not get a racist response or the silent treatment? It can easily happen.

I could care less. I choose who I want to talk to, and begin a conversation, or I sit down, leaving a space next to me for any interested conversation partner. It's really quite easy.

Perhaps the most bizarre conversation involved a 21-year-old woman named Miki, who I approached after I was told my a Japanese friend that she spoke English. She was taken aback, at first, but then warmed up to me as the train hummed down the tracks. By the end of the conversation, I realized that for the last 10 minutes I had been sort of hitting on a girl in another language. Was this even possible?

Though I thought I was quite smooth toward her, she declined my invitation to accompany us to karaoke.

But at least I got some conversation practice.