"Your Japanese is really good!"

Apart from the super pricey fresh fruits and vegetables, what annoys me the most in Japan so far is the fact that people feel the need to comment on my Japanese all the time. Yes, it is really nice if they tell me how good my Japanese is. BUT

1) telling me 日本語お上手ですね after all I said was 初めまして doesn't really make me feel like they mean it. Yes, you can tell by only one word. From the intonation. Sure. Of course. Can I tell you that my kanji abilities severely suck?

2) Even people I have become friends with do it. 日本語上手だね、ユリア。Should I come a bit closer so you can pat me on the head? Seriously, I have "friends" who have nothing else to say when it comes to compliments.

3) The other way round, some people still assume I can't find the way home from the train station or even university. Or they think they have to explain everyday words like pork or chicken to me. The same people who complimented my Japanese before. Hello, if I can speak a complicated language like Japanese, I can figure out how to reach a destination as well. Especially if I go there everyday. I do it all the time when you're not there to hold my little white hand. And chivalry does not mean to assume the girl in front of you is brain-dead. It's nice when you want to carry my bag. I carry it every day, but sure, why not? It is not so nice to ask me if I am sure that this direction of the Yamanote line is the right one to get to my dorm. Um, yeah, I think it is. I use it at least once a week, and it never failed to get me home. Thanks, but...

Same with chopsticks. "You're really good at eating with chopsticks, aren't you?" Actually, I'm not. I can eat, but it doesn't look very elegant. Anyway, do I compliment you on your abilities of eating with fork and knife? No, I don't! Because I think that's really rude. "Look, mummy, the monkey in the zoo can eat with a fork!" Give me a break.

Maybe Japanese people are still not used to foreigners speaking their language. But come on, folks, Japanese is not, I don't know, Clingon. Normal people can totally learn it if they try a bit. Maybe it's because Japanese usually don't speak foreign languages. Although many students go on study abroad programs nowadays. And I don't run around telling them, "OMG, your German is soooooo great!!!" I feel like I'd belittle them. Of course their German is good - they studied for it. Plus, if they're my friends, I like them because we have a similar music taste or drool over the same actor, and not because they're able to declinate nouns.

Don't get me wrong, I like compliments. But for the last three months, 90% of the nice words I have received had to do with my Japanese language abilities. Isn't there anything else about me you can like? No? Did you try? Try to look past the Japanese slang I picked up in TV dramas, past my apparent "fluency" (which means just nodding when I don't understand something - praise my acting abilities, how is that?) and notice that I am not "just another gaijin who speaks Japanese", but that I might have some other qualities as well? I can be quite nice and funny if I don't get all pissed off about compliments on my Japanese. ;)

And I really, really wanna see someone in Berlin address some foreign(-looking) person with "Your German is really good!" A "shut up" is probably the least angry response they might get.