No comments about Reading Japanese Signs: Deciphering Daily Life in Japan.

No comments about Japan: Reports from an Enigmatic Land.

1 comments about Strange Big Moon: The Japan and India Journals, 1960-1964.

1. This book reminds me of Sei Shonagon, but the cast of characters is often well-known Beat writers. Kyger was married to Beat saint Gary Snyder at the time, but she is iconoclastic in regards to presenting him here. The arc of the book is their love story -- beginning with a shy and rather impressed Kyger and ending with a rather loud and irreverent Kyger. Early on she worships Snyder, but then he knocks her down and splits her head open on a wood table when she refuses to do the dishes. He is surly throughout the book, and given to bad moods, and kicks her at least twice.

   Kyger gets it all down.

   Beat saint Allen Ginsberg grabs his food at the communal dining hour and shoves his face full without waiting for others to be served. Orlovsky is shoving drugs in his face every moment that he can.

   This is a funny book that knocks out stereotypes left and right. In one or two sentences she undoes the career of Paul Blackburn, for instance. And all the while she is musing on the possibility of a female literature, and what it might consist of -- something for which she had no clear legacy in American but the Japanese writers of the Heian period such as Sei Shonagon appear to have given her the inspiration needed.

   This is a very good book for those who are tired of the Beats self-sanctification, and want a bit of humorous and unsparing insight into their world.

No comments about Japan (Countries of the World).

1 comments about Making It in Japan.

1. I cannot recommend this book enough! If you plan to go to Japan any time soon, this book is an excellent source of priceless info on how to take advantage of everything that Japan has to offer. Indispensible.

2 comments about Passport Japan: Your Pocket Guide to Japanese Business, Customs & Etiquette (Passport to the World) (Passport to the World).

1. For a first time American businessperson (woman, at that) it is a comprehensive and high-level look at doing business the Japanese way.



2. My son was delighted with it. It contained the Japanese business etiquette information he was seeking.

No comments about Japan Style (Icons Series).

3 comments about Japanese Pilgrimage.

1. Oliver Statler's Japanese Pilgrimage is a delight. Retracing the steps of generations of past pilgrims, he brings their stories to life and evokes a gentle reflective mood for the reader. As well, modern Japan is brought into focus through his appreciation of the links between tradition, Buddhism and Shinto and contemporary culture. A really delightful read, and a good "travellers tale" that will be enjoyed by those who have or are planning to visit Japan.



2. This book tells the story of an American man who makes a famous pilgrimage around the island of Shikoku with his Japanese friend.
   Having lived/studied in Zentsuji Shikoku for a year, (the home of Kobo Daishi the monk who created the pilgrims trail) I can vouch for the books authenticity.

   It is a tale about the 88 temples along the way, the political intrigues, secret love affairs between villgers and pilgrims and the stories of despair and pain. Oliver weaves a beautiful web between the past history which he quotes and the present conditions of the modern pilgrims and village people he meets along the way. It is not only a book about Japanese culture accurately and sensitively crafted but the spiritual journey of the author also and his struggle with his inner darkness. Its a great read.

   Each temple along the way has a personality and a shadow and the pilgrim connects the stories of the past with his present journey as he interviews the local people and describes their various characteristics. The journey traverses various provinces from Kagawa to Kochi where the various people display unique attitudes towards the pilgrims varying between open hostility to hospitality.

   It is a good book to realize the complexity of Japanese culture and to appreciate the beauty of this amazing island of sea, temples and mountains. Oliver is truly an amazing oriental observer with the spirit of zen in each page. He writes honestly, openly and without pretention.




3. They just don't make books like this anymore! This is a wonderfully rambling, lyrical, impressionistic portrait of the Shikoku Pilgrimage, anecdotal and episodic and yet gradually unfolding according to an underlying narrative plan. It's accessible and simply written and yet well-researched, informative, and highly evocative of Japanese religiosity as it functions in real life. At times it's intensely personal, based as it is on the author's own pilgrimage experiences (mainly a complete walking circuit of the eighty-eight temples accomplished with a friend in 1971), and yet at other times it's intriguingly biographical concerning monks and pilgrims prominent in the pilgrimage's long history. The author's fervent enthusiasm and deep esteem for this religious phenomenon and its underlying spirituality overflows on every page, and yet he's quite realistic and straightforward about some of the shadier and unsavory aspects of the pilgrimage. Finally, the icing on the cake, the book is profusely illustrated with fine woodcuts and paintings both premodern and modern, once again proving the principle that a picture's worth a thousand words.
   
   The book is divided into three sections, and with each section the reader gets closer and closer to lived religion in Japan. In the first part Statler concentrates on outlining the historical personage of Kukai (later known honorifically as Kobo Daishi), the 8th/9th-century monk and founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism in Japan upon whom the pilgrimage is focused. In the second part Statler attempts to portray how layers and layers of legend and belief enlarged and eventually apotheosized Kobo Daishi and of how faith in him as a divine savior was spread among the populace by wandering, itinerant holy men (many pious if unlearned, some inevitably charlatans). Finally, in the third section the pilgrimage itself comes into sharper focus, including discussions with current pilgrims and priests along with accounts of many past pilgrims such as the Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danzo VIII, the feminist writer Takamure Itsue, the Chicago anthropologist Frederick Starr, and the haiku poet Masaoka Shiki, to name only a few. And of course all three sections are permeated with legends, folk stories, anecdotes, and miracle tales that are fantastic or even bizarre--and that capture the mood and feel of the pilgrimage perfectly in all its ambiguity.
   
   Just a word of warning, though, this is not a guidebook. Statler does not describe every single one of the eighty-eight temples*, and for those temples he does describe he skips around a lot and backtracks now and then with no attempt at going along in their order on the pilgrimage route. And there is absolutely no concrete information on travel and accommodations or the like, so don't count on this book for such purposes. Instead, allow this book to get you into the spirit of the pilgrimage, whether you really intend on actually performing it or not, in fact. Indeed, you don't need to know a thing about Japan to follow and enjoy this fine account, and yet those who've studied Japan for years will doubtlessly find much to learn and enjoy as well. And if you happen to have fond memories of life in rural Japan, then believe me, this book will definitely take you back there in spirit.
   
   *(In the back there is an appendix with each temple listed by name and number along with the principal deity and sect affiliation of each, though this is more in the nature of an FYI than a guide per se).

2 comments about At Home in Tokyo.

1. In the early 1990s Gwen G. Robinson spent a year in Tokyo with her husband, who was a visiting professor/consultant there. She could not speak Japanese. Many people, when thrust into an utterly unfamiliar environment, would withdraw. Instead, the author closely observed and described her surroundings and her own reactions to them. She writes about her bewilderingly high-tech house, shopping for unidentifiable food, venturing forth via public transportation, getting to know her husband's interesting colleagues, visiting other parts of Japan (and, briefly, Australia), entertaining also-bewildered family members, and living an "ordinary" life. However, Robinson is obviously no ordinary woman, and her writing reflects a deep knowledge of world cultures and a scholar's tendency to analyze her surroundings in that context. The often-funny and engaging narrative is interspersed with historical and linguistic bits of information. Her account of tutoring three Japanese women in English is particularly revealing of cultural differences. I highly recommend this book--it is like visiting Japan without actually going there.



2. Gwen Robinson charmingly tells of her year in Japan where her husband an academic appointment in Tokyo. So clear and colorful is Gwen in her telling that this reader almost feels that it is herself who is struggling with an unknown language, grocery shopping, meeting new people, discovering small intimate neighborhoods within the big city, and, finally, making friends and being a part of things. One only hopes that one would have the author's intelligence, empathy, good humor, and ability to laugh at herself.
   There is considerable information here on modern Japan--the position of women, theater, education, the beauties of the countryside. In the company of Gwen and her family, we are with worldly people and can feel grateful to have their take on things.
   This book has made me feel very ready to visit Japan myself.

No comments about Japan's New Imperialism.