Doorbell about a month ago. P, having had a random idea, dropping off a couple of left over books written by a friend. Actual books, made of paper, so, of course, I read them. Eventually. Wasn't the easiest task, though. Non-fiction scenes about life in Tokyo, author basically lives down the road from our place. Got awards and everything. First one written in 2005, published 2014, read 2023. Which was a problem.
Picture how much life has changed in the recent years. Now double that, because Tokyo (and even Japan will eventually be forced to enter the current century, I'm sure). Meaning that a large part of the book induced cringing over the outdated "This is so and that is so" statements. Turns out 18 years are nowhere near long enough to be able to read and dismiss the stories you've been living in yourself as irrelevant pieces of funny history, so instead they spawn a swarm of thoughts like "Oh god, if someone who hasn't lived here for at least ten of those years reads it and actually takes this stuff at face value..."
A few "snapshots" apply even after the time warp. Vending machines and nigh magical postal delivery, anyone? The chapters about ways of holding on to train handles, the Donkihote shopping experience and a few others were very good throughout. On the other hand, if those pearls hadn't existed, perhaps I wouldn't have had to spend my time on the rest of it. (Nah, who are we kidding, I can't not finish a book once started, even if bad.)
Because scattered throughout were views that I can't but describe as narrow-minded ignorance of a trueborn 'Murican. To clarify, during most of the book I did not know the author was American, but the inherent, probably-not-conciously-meant-in-a-bad-way-but-nevertheless-insulting-to-everyone-else aura of entitlement the writing gave off was just unmissable. Newsflash - not everything in the whole world works/looks exactly as in the States, from things to people to motivations. Which, based on the list of countries-lived-in printed in the final chapter, the author should know extremely well. So how exactly one manages to lead a life wandering the world and still be (or at least pretend/claim to be) shocked to their core about cultural differences, I couldn't guess.
Perhaps stemming from that, a bunch of the claims were just plain wrong. A rant about the Japanese people always walking fast, as a random example. No, they really don't. If I tried hard, I could come up with a couple of people who may think so, but the most typical foreigner complaint is, and has always been, that the locals move so goddamn slow, it's a total headache to keep having to swerve around them to ever get anywhere. Apply thought equally to walking, biking and driving.
(Note: in case of the last, I don't suggest anyone should be speeding, but I do wish they'd actually teach proper car control here instead of how many times one needs to point and nod at things before even starting the bloody machine; I do wish that people would stop holding up traffic and drive up to the speed limit, when it is clearly safe to do so; I do wish that drivers would stop watching TV while in control of hazardous metal monsters (Noteinanote: if you own a car, you are required by law to pay the insane monthly fee to the local TV network); and I do wish that the millions of very elderly wouldn't automatically get their licence extended way past when their health situation should put a stop to that, if any common sense applied.)
Then there was the constantly repeated obsession about banners, signs, maps, ads, kanji etc. NO, the average Japanese does not mean a thing with whatever nonsense is written on their T-shirt in broken English. Simply because they can't read it. And this in 2023, not to mention twenty years ago. Forcibly attaching witty meanings to this blatant fast fashion consumerism is just revolting.
Which sort of illustrates the rest of the book - the absolute Japanoworship. Like, serious blind hardcore belief, that ANYTHING Japanese is pure and holy with the deepest of deep meanings and the best it can ever be. An example that really drove me up the wall was the outright orgastic section about chopsticks. Not a usage manual or any interesting historical info, oh no. The way the chapter read, if the author doesn't get off on watching the blessed chopsticks in use as opposed to the oh-so-base, disgusting and dreaded Western cutlery, I'll eat my hat.
In that light, the fact that only minuscule mentions of the massively important food culture of Japan were included in the book was probably a good thing. Then again, I've still got the second one to go...
Right. So. Leaving that questionable approach aside, the topics were mostly well chosen. Language usage-wise the text was pleasant to read, the amount of typos wasn't too bad and most sentences made their point clear. The best part, though, were the intermittent Japanese terms, that were all also completely correct! (Also relevant and spaced apart enough to not be overwhelming.) Why it was decided to only add the explanations of those as a list to the back of the book, and not mention neither that fact nor the meanings earlier, is beyond me, though. Attempt to make a non Japanese speaker who has managed to reach the end without understanding any of the key phrases to go read it again, this time with the newly discovered glossary? (Which raises the question about the target audience of the book, but whatever.)
But, clearly, reading it made me personally write this post. To be honest, brain also started auto-compiling excessive lists of good-vs-bad-vs-weird about life in Japan, but writing all of THAT down is a project a bit too big to tackle right now.
Cheers,
Hedi