Wow. What style of budism?? Thats impressive.
Maybe her dad(Priest) knows real budism huh? 
(Cus I ackowledge real budism as the crucial liberty)
Zen school.
Yes, he is a very wise man who also knows his daughter very good.
But my experience with foreigners in Japan is that it all comes down to how you feel yourself. A friend of mine got pissed everytime he was spoken to in english or regarded as an american. At sometime, he was pissed all the time because EVERY japanese assumed that any gaijin MUST BE american.
For me, it never was a problem. If someone talks to me in english, i answer in japanese very politly, telling the person i cannot understand english because i'm german. That's normally enough to win them over.
You just have to be relaxed, calm and live your life moment by moment, never dragging along the frustration of yesterday, than it's no problem, lol. (Easily said, it's actually quite hard to do so, but you get what i mean.)
