Japanese people staring at you

If you are a non-asian person in Japan you are going to get stared at a lot. Or are you? Maybe Japanese stare more at asian-looking foreigners?

Let's take a look at this!

I am a non-asian foreigner in Japan. I live in Osaka which is a big city where there are both tourists and foreigners living, working, studying etc. In short, people of Osaka have seen foreigners. They know what they look like, and therefore, most of the time, they wont stare at you.
Now say I lived in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere where foreigners are barely ever seen, yes people would stare at me. But here in the middle of it all I am, to most people, just another foreigner.

It's not to say I don't get stared at, it happens sometimes. Mostly it's children that take a stare at me. One time some children even started walking backwards after passing me just so they could get a bit more time to look at me. But even when it comes to the kids who have no shame in staring, most don't do it!

Now I have the tendency to look down on the ground when walking etc so it might be that I don't catch people staring at me. But even so, I think it has more to do with what kind of personality you have, rather than where you look.

Why?

Because I have a friend who actually is half Japanese and they look no different from any Japanese person. They fit in here like I never could, yet they constantly tell me about how people are staring at them.
They can just be walking down the street, standing around waiting etc and then tell me: "Did you see that person looking at me?" They are always very serious about this and tells me what they think the person was thinking about them when staring like that.

In all honesty I have never seen anyone stare at my friend. And the times when she tells me someone was staring at me I haven't noticed it either.

This friend always says to me: "If people stare at me here I can't imagine what it would feel like to be you!"
But if you were me, with my personality, you wouldn't see any stares!

So, do you get stared at in Japan as a non-asian foreigner, or as a foreigner in general? - Yes, but only as much as you lead yourself to believe ;)!