Maybe you can ping the Japanese expat FReeper list. I don’t think very many people understand how bad this really is.
My work: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2391547/posts
Date: 22 November 2009
Pertinent exerpts:
(AiT Translation: "--Obama was made to wait five minutes in a car at the entrance way to the Prime Minister's Official Residence, which as seen as not only a diplomatic discourtesy, but a breach of security procedures, and furthermore it would be recalled the Prime Minister and his wife had kept Obama waiting for a long time in Pittsburg at the G-20 dinner as well, says foreign affairs specialist Oyama." ... "It was to the point that even on the American side, there were those in the Obama delegation who were yawning and even some who were nodding off right there in the meeting."....--Prime Minister Hatoyama essentially left Obama on Japanese soil while he went ahead of Obama to the Singapore summit of APEC, leaving on the November 14 even while Obama still had major events in Japan such as delivering a major live speech and visiting the Imperial Palace, so this to was seen perhaps as a message leaving ahead of him like that as a country's host, observed a reporter attached to the Prime Minister's beat. The reason to go to Singapore like that was to tape-cut the grand opening of a Japan information center, but in order to do that, cutting time to be spent with the President of the US on Japanese soil is rather unprecedented, journalist Michael Yu observed."
In the early 60s while serving in the US Navy, I was in a small unit in ADM Moorer's Flag group. Our small unit had a very savvy Chief Petty Officer that had cultivated contacts in Japan since the end of WW2. He carefully taught us protocol, manners, greetings and more importantly the Asian concept of "losing face".
It stood us well. We got in places and witnessed things that upper echelon was boggled about. I saw commissioned officers trying to "horn in" on Chief's plans being rebuked by Japanese folks in high culture sending quite a message. Chief did NOT grovel BTW, there was a definite meeting of the minds. It was a great cruise.