The building has a roof of Japanese tiles and the exposed beams of a Tudor house. Chinese and Indian influences are manifest in the interior frescoes, stonework and woodwork. In the basement is a small private theatre.

This colonial-style dwelling sits atop a hill in central Nagoya, Japan's fourth-largest city, where concrete blocks of flats have long since replaced what little traditional architecture survived bombing during the second world war. This building, home to an entrepreneur and philanthropist for 20 years before the war, is now a lonely anomaly.

A slight man shuffles on to the stage. He is introduced as an 84-year-old former university professor, a specialist in all things Indian. His task is to provide context for the audience of about 100 guests and local residents. He holds up some Indian banknotes and points out that the rupee denominations are written in 13 languages, demonstrating that an Indian person's sense of personal and national identity is vastly different from that of the average Japanese raised in a country with 99% ethnic homogeneity. Next, slides depicting scenes from Indian schools are explained.

Such events are common in a country where overuse of the word "international" hints at insecurities. There remains a sense of inferiority that is often connected to the constraints of living spaces and the low level of English language ability among a highly educated population.

The professor is abruptly cut off - it is time for the performance to begin - but he leaves his audience with a parting message. There is a tendency for Japanese people, he says, to be open and helpful to Caucasian foreigners from North America or Europe. He encourages listeners not to hesitate to greet, converse with and learn from people of all creeds and cultures. Japanese discomfort with difference stems from the fact that the country and its people are somehow emotionally disconnected from other cultures.

There is evidence of this detachment in the Indian dance performance that follows. The four Japanese women in the troupe are excellent dancers. But when the sole Indian performer steps on to the stage, the transformation is akin to seeing Zinedine Zidane taking a football from an average player. The fluidity and timing of her movements highlight the over-practised precision of her Japanese counterparts, perhaps a hangover from the way in which most arts are taught here.

The Indian dancer jangles to a halt and thanks the audience in fluent Japanese. They then move to the second floor, where samosa and chai (Indian spice milk tea) are served. Several women dressed in jeans or kimono now sport new accessories - amulets on their foreheads. They finish their snacks and take a moment to drink in the full moon, which is illuminating the Japanese garden at the rear of the house. Then they disperse, melting back into their world of anonymous concrete apartment blocks.

I take a last look at the moon and at the neighbouring construction site. Soon another apartment building will block this view, casting a literal shadow on a piece of living history. For better or worse, the past is as much a foreign country as India to most modern Japanese.