Foreign fixation

I'm treated very well here, but still wonder why certain people have an obsession with foreign-ness. I'm not talking about women who want to marry foreign guys, or people who love German cars and Italian wines, things like that. What I mean is some people, not everyone but really a lot of people, can't see anything I do or explain without some kind of foreign connection. In other words, some Japanese who I know, who know I've lived here for years, are surprised to see me at the neighborhood supermarket, as if my food magically appears from some foreign place.

So a week ago, I was on my way to a restaurant with a woman, she's known me for 7 or 8 years, she knows I've traveled around Japan, speak the language, and so on, but the whole way to the restaurant she was pointing out local landmarks to me.
"Oh, and here on the right is the library. Have you ever been there?"
"Yes, many times actually."
"Wow! That's amazing! Oh, and on the left is the prefectural office." an imposing building in the heart of downtown. Frankly I've probably been there more than she has because as a foreigner I need to go there for visa information and so on. It would be kind of like pointing out the white house to a French person who has lived in Washington DC for 8 years.
"Oh, and across the street there is Ohtemae High School. Do you know it?"
Anyone who has spent 30 minutes in downtown Kochi knows it. It's another imposing old building in the heart of downtown. Put another way, it's on postcards and has been used several times as the location for TV dramas. Oh, and I worked there for 2 years, which she knows.

I had the following conversation with another woman the same week.
She said "I was late today so I drove very fast. I almost had an accident."
This woman is a scary driver so the idea of her going fast is terrifying.
"Oh, please be careful. A few days ago one of my students had a bad accident." Not that there's a causal relationship, but it's my job to keep conversation moving.
"Foreigner?"
Overlooking the fact that chances are someone studying English with me is not a foreigner, we still have to wonder, what has that got to do with anything? How would the knowledge of her being Japanese or non-Japanese have any relationship to the story? But it comes up like that all the time. So I ignored the question.
"Do you have a big car?" she asked.
Even though there are maybe a half dozen US made cars in this city, and people are proud of the success of Japanese makers in the US market, people assume I must drive an American car. Oh, and American cars are big, unlike a Toyota Land Cruiser or Lexus LS450.
"No my car is not big."
"Eh? Not big? What kind of car?" (She's seen my car by the way.)
"Mazda"
"Huh? Not a foreign car?"
"No, it's a Japanese car."
"Where did you buy it?" (because you know, maybe I went to the states 3 years ago, bought a Japanese car and brought it back to Japan with me.)
"I bought it here in Kochi."
Her eyes were getting wider and wider, as if I was showing her for the first time a photo album of me before the sex change.
Then she asked "Did you buy it from a foreigner?"

So anyway, that's what I mean by obsession with foreign-ness. Any story I tell, some people can't comprehend that it took place in Japan, with Japanese people, and Japanese stuff, using the Japanese language and Japanese money and Japanese food and so on, even people that have known me for years.