Coffee Life in Japan by Merry White (University of California Press)

Starbucks has given Seattle a reputation for coffee worldwide, providing standardized espresso drinks and clean restrooms all across the globe. In much of Asia, especially in China, the Pacific Northwest chain has become a chic place to sit and sip—but not in Japan.

Merry White begins her examination of coffeehouses in Japan with memories of “the Vienna, a four-story velvet extravaganza, where kaffe Wien was served with Mozart, amid gilt chairs and filigreed balconies,” of “a neighborhood café, redolent of male friendship, old cigarettes, and smelly feet,” and a “a half-underground, cavelike café” where customers removed all of their clothes, were daubed with blue paint and then were urged to press their bodies against sheets of white paper hanging from the walls. This was in Tokyo in the 1960s, when Howard Schultz was still drinking milk in elementary school and most coffee-drinkers in Seattle still used a percolator.

Japan enthusiastically took to coffee in 1888, when the first coffeehouse emerged in Tokyo, established by a cosmopolite Japanese who had been adopted by a man from Taiwan, was raised to speak four languages, and was sent to Yale University when he was sixteen. Although this initial foray into coffee culture went bankrupt (its founder died seven years later in Seattle), Meiji-era Japan perceived coffee drinking as a modern virtue and the café as an intriguing personal space in a country where this came at a premium. “Coffee,” White explains, “became Japanese quickly…From the early 1900s, coffee, a drink for everyday, became a commonplace and Japanese beverage.”

And the beverage was powered by the places where it was enjoyed. With its ‘dry inebriation,” coffee “was seen also as the drink of thoughtfulness,” providing a way to be “private in public.” While in the West, coffeehouses were gathering places of extroverted sociability, in Japan they became an essential “third place,” spots where pressures of home and work were escaped for a time, where private space could be purchased for the price of a cup of coffee.

As places where people are free to interact or not as they choose, Japanese coffeehouses became “shape- shifters.”  There are cafés for every facet of a personality—places to be anonymous and quiet, places to see art, places to hear jazz, places that serve as classical music venues where patrons request that certain record albums be played as they sit silently sipping their coffee, places where tiny fish nibble the submerged bare feet of coffee drinkers, and of course the neighborhood spots where “everybody knows your name.”

The Japanese café is not a matter of style over substance. The drinking of coffee is a paramount consideration and each cup is often hand-crafted--kodawari., or the art of dedication, is essential. The beans are often roasted in the coffeehouse, with a particular bean often ordered ahead of time by a customer, and are ground for that serving alone, as soon as the order has been placed. The water is poured over the ground beans in a slow and meticulous stream of carefully-placed drips, only after it has been cooled from its boiling point to the proper temperature. The freshly-ground coffee is moistened without the water ever touching the sides of the filter. “Coffee masters” often disdain espresso machines, preferring the time-honored drip from a narrow-spouted kettle over a filter made of flannel. One master is known for evicting from his shop customers who ask for cream and sugar to put in the coffee he makes—“he would have made it stronger or hotter, or with a different bean, if sugar or milk were needed.”

Small wonder that the Japanese art of coffee is spreading throughout the world. Suzuki beans and cafés are found throughout Southeast Asia and Japanese coffee-making methods are being taught in the U.S. from New York City to San Francisco. Perhaps Seattle, with its resurging Nihonmachi, will eventually lead the way for coffee drinkers to experience the full spectrum of public caffeination as it’s described in Coffee Life in Japan.~Janet Brown

Midnight in Peking by Paul French (Penguin Books)

The new year of 1937 had barely begun when an old man, walking near one of Peking’s ancient walls early in the morning, came across the body of a dead girl. Her face had been slashed with a knife, her legs were sliced, and her sternum had been cut open with all of her ribs broken; her heart, liver, bladder and one of her kidneys had been removed. Her body had been savaged by the stray dogs that roamed the city and the only clue as to who she may have been was a blood-soaked membership card for the ice-skating rink at the French Club. Her hair was blonde and on her wrist was a platinum watch that was set in diamonds. Clearly this bizarre murder had not been prompted by robbery.

As the police made a preliminary examination of the corpse and the crime scene, an elderly man made his way to the body, screamed “Pamela” and fell to the ground. E.T. C. Werner, a scholar and former British consul, had lived in China since the 1880s. The night before, his only child had failed to return home and he had wandered the neighborhoods searching for her. When he found her at last, she was in the realm of every parent’s worst nightmare.

Peking was a city that was already gripped in fear before Pamela Werner was murdered. The Japanese had conquered Manchuria six years earlier and now they were advancing upon China’s third-richest city, with troops encamped only miles away. Most of Peking’s two thousand foreign residents were sheltered within the eight heavily guarded iron gates of the city’s Legation Quarter, a spot that was “Europe in miniature.” Terrified by the rumors that Chiang Kai-shek would relinquish northern China in hopes of retaining the south, Westerners were leaving for home—but not the widowed Edward Werner and his daughter.

The two of them lived outside of the protective gates of the Legation Quarter in a luxurious courtyard house, and both took pleasure in roaming the city. Pamela, born in China and fluent in Mandarin, rode her bicycle unaccompanied, ran the household singlehanded when her father traveled, and became so independent that her father found her difficult to control. He sent her off to boarding school where she appeared to be a typical hockey-playing, uniformed, drab teenager. At home in Peking for the holidays, she transformed herself into a glamorous woman in black, wearing lipstick and kohl.

“I am afraid of nothing...Peking is the safest city in the world,” were Pamela’s last words to her friends before she left them on the night of her murder, which took place almost a month before her twentieth birthday. Two detectives, one British and one Chinese, combed the city for clues as to who her killer might have been and discovered Pamela had been pursued by more than one man. Despite her demure schoolgirl persona, her true self was much more the seductress in black.

History was unkind to Pamela. The investigation of her murder was soon supplanted by Japanese tanks in the streets of Peking (a mere goodwill parade, the Japanese Legation assured the city) and the sky was loud with the noise of Japanese Zero aircraft, buzzing overhead. By the end of July, Peking was a conquered city.

Her father however spent all of his money and energy in his attempts to find his daughter’s killer. The decadence and cruelty that he discovered on his own would have shaken and horrified Peking’s expatriate world had the war not intervened.

Much as Erik Larson did in Devil in the White City, Paul French has taken historical true crime and given it the depth and suspense of a good novel. Midnight in Peking is a book that recreates a time and place with vivid accuracy, while bringing a horrible crime to a stunning close, seventy-five years after Pamela Werner was murdered.~Janet Brown

Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong by Gordon Mathews (University of Chicago Press)

Seventeen stories, three-tower blocks rising from a massive plinth, owned by 920 share-holders, containing a transient population of at least 129 different nationalities who come looking for a cheap place to sleep in the middle of Kowloon’s Golden Mile—this is Chungking Mansions. Avoided by local Hong Kong Chinese, immortalized by Wong Kar-wai in his art-house movie Chungking Express, occasionally used as a setting for Western mystery writers (most recently Michael Connelly and Jo Nesbo), this is more a town than it is a building, housing a community of what Gordon Mathews terms “low-end globalism.”

An American anthropologist who has lived in Hong Kong since 1994, Mathews became drawn to Chungking Mansions in 1983 when he stayed there while traveling. In 2006 he began his project to discover the building’s “role in globalization” and its “significance in the world.” No ivory-tower denizen, Mathews spent “one or more nights a week” in Chungking Mansions guesthouses  as well as “every available moment” for a period of three and a half years. The result of his research is true to his subject and is amazingly readable—his book sparkles with life that is rarely found in an offering from an academic press.

Mathews knows his territory and shares it generously. Chungking Mansion’s history, from an upscale apartment building to a center for “Western hippies and backpackers” to a business center for entrepreneurs from all over the planet is well laid out and the often mysterious details of its present incarnation are carefully explained. Travelers who have wondered about the evening crowds of Africans at the nearby 7/11 or the function of the middle-aged sari-clad women who cluster in the same area during the day will find their curiosity satisfied in these pages. (Unfortunately, to protect the unlicensed premises, Mathews fails to divulge where the elusive African restaurants are in the upper floors of Chungking Mansions.)

People have learned to trust Gordon Mathews and he safeguards that trust by giving pseudonyms to the people who have granted him candid interviews. “I was born here in Hong Kong—I am a Hong Kong person,” a Sikh shop owner says, “I feel like an outsider…but when I enter this building..I feel like I’m home. All countries can enter here. Outside is difficult, but Chungking Mansions is home!”

And all countries do enter here—represented by people who come to do business, along with a number of asylum-speakers. Chungking Mansions is a world-center for inexpensive mobile phones that are made in China and transported to Africa in carry-on luggage, as many as 700 phones per trip, bringing ‘an average profit of US $500 per trip.” Clothing manufactured in mainland China, tires from used cars, DVD players, computer accessories—luggage carts heaped higher than a man’s head are wheeled out of Chungking Mansions regularly. Gold and gems come in from Africa—one man would arrive with a full set of gold dentures and leave with sparkling white ones. These are not poor men and women, except by Hong Kong standards, which are high enough to make many visitors feel poor. Most of the traders who fill Chungking’s elevators are middle-class and higher in their home countries and most of them use English as a common language.

Aside from being an intriguing portrait of a fascinating corner of the world, Mathew’s book challenges accepted definitions of globalization. Multi-national corporations are in some ways being supplanted by cheap knock-offs traded by entrepreneurial individuals. Only a minority of the world’s population can afford Nokia; the rest will happily accept Noklia, if the price is right—and it usually is. “Low-end globalization,” Mathews says, “is not the world’s past; it is, in at least some respects, the world’s future.”

“I predict,” he continues, “that what Chungking Mansions is today, much more of the world will be tomorrow.” And that prediction, at least as Gordon Mathews’ book portrays it, is one to look forward to.~Janet Brown

Seven Reasons to Go Travelling Solo by Chris Mitchell

If there is one quibble I have with this book (and there is only one), it is with its title.

Please be warned: this book is limited neither to solo travelers nor to first-time passport-users. Anyone and everyone is going to find useful information in here, no matter how many visa stamps they may have accumulated over the years or how many companions they have traveled with. This is one of the most useful travel tools that has come down the pike since the compass was invented, trust me.

I was skeptical at first. I always travel alone and have for decades—what could this book tell me? Quite a bit, as it turns out, and I’m willing to bet that every reader is going to come away with more information than they had when they began to read the first of the seven tips. And this is information that’s fun to read, like a chat with the author over an ice-cold Asahi draft (and yes, I am fully qualified to make that comparison.)

“Travel is a jolt to the soul”—this quote from Kevin Kelly sets the tone for this book, with Mitchell later observing that travel can, as the cliché says, broaden your mind but it can also change your mind. He’s living proof of that himself; his travel lust has endowed him with a new home in the world, a new livelihood, and a delightful enthusiasm for seeing new places that permeates every page of his book.

From how to maintain a long-distance relationship while on a trip of some duration to how to travel with a laptop without suffering unforeseen disasters, how to travel in a country without knowing the language and still make friends with the residents, how to budget for a trip without living on ramen for a year, how to survive an airport (keep that ticket stub!), how to make money while you travel without violating the terms of a tourist visa, how to avoid unpleasant last-minute carry-on restrictions—it’s all here. Mitchell provides links to sites that will “monetize” a travel blog, sites that offer “microjobs,” sites that find cheap airfares, and of course a link to TravelHappy at the end of each chapter, along with the site’s cheery and distinctive logo.

Although his title targets the solo traveler, Mitchell assures his readers “you won’t be alone for long.” “Become comfortable with the unfamiliar,” he advises, “Step up and speak to the locals….90% of communication is body language.” An advocate of learning key phrases, most notably “please, thank you and excuse me,” and not being afraid to make a fool of yourself through pantomime when there’s no other way to get the point across, Mitchell makes it clear that lack of language should be no barrier to having a good time.

For all that he knows how to use the internet for fun and profit, Chris Mitchell is in some ways a traditionalist. “Always carry a pen and paper,” he urges—taxi instructions written in the local language can make the difference between enjoyment and disaster. (It’s also true that in some countries, different accents in English can impede communication, while the written word can prove to be completely comprehensible.) And when packing, he reminds readers, “Good old paperback books have no battery problems and are still lightweight.”

Readers are given links to TravelHappy pages where all of the book’s travel resources are listed for easy reference and a place where free updated information will be posted. These alone are worth the price of the book, as are Mitchell’s final words of advice to prospective travelers, “Don’t wait.”

(For how to purchase this book, go to http://travelhappy.info/ )~Janet Brown

My Days, My Dreams : Stories From A Boyhood in Northern Japan by Yojiro Ishizaka [Translated by Hannah Joy Sawada] (Rojosha)

Since I recently returned from a visit to Aomori Prefecture, also known as Tsugaru, I was delighted to find an English translation of a book written by of one of that area’s prominent authors – Yojiro Ishizaka.  I didn’t pick up this book because I was familiar with its writer but because this area is also the hometown of my wife. It may seem a silly way to choose my reading material but I’ve been to Tsugaru often and my love for the place grows with every visit.

Although writers from Tsugaru are quite popular in Japan, only a few have been translated into English.  To give you an idea of how popular Ishizaka is in Japan, there are nearly 80 movies based on his works.

As translator Sawada mentions, most scholars focus on the writings of Osamu Dazai (also from Tsugaru) whose novels give a pessimistic image of Tsugaru, emphasizing the region’s poverty, rough weather, and lack of development.  Another writer from the area, Zenzo Kasai, also portrays Tsugaru in a rather bleak light. However, Ishizakal gives a perspective that’s quite opposite from the portrayals provided by Dazai or Kasai

In Ishizaka’s own words, “I myself do not want to be like Kasai or Dazai, who inflicted pain and sorrow on their families for the sake of their writing.  It is not commendable to ravage private lives for the purpose of drawing a good picture, composing great music, or producing superior literature.”

This is a collection of short stories all set near Ishizaka’s hometown of Hirosaki located in the Northeast of Japan’s main island of Honshu, the area also known as Tsugaru. All the stories are set in a time before the industrial revolution and center around the protagonist  Yuichi Makii, who is introduced in the first story as a sixth grade youth and son of the local doctor.

Yuiichi is excited about the upcoming Neputa Festival, which lasts for one week starting at the beginning of August.  Huge colorful floats parade through the streets while musicians play flutes accompanied by the loud sounds of a taiko drum.  However, the Neputa festival is only a backdrop to the story of Yuiichi’s friendship with the town prostitute Gen on whom Yuiichi has a crush.

Another story features Yuiichi’s first oyama sankei, a Tsugaru tradition of ascending Mount Iwaki, which is called the Mount Fuji of Tsugaru and is considered to be a sacred mountain.  At its base is Iwakiyama Jinja (Mount Iwaki Shrine), a national shrine the locals refer to as Oku Nikko (Nikko in the recesses). Yuichi intends to climb the mountain with a couple of his friends but things don’t go as he has planned. But not wanting to shame himself by going home after his parents had reluctantly consented to his going, he is determined to make the ascent.

Aomori Prefecture is full of interesting places.  There is a place called “Kirisuto no Haka” which translates to “Jesus’s Tomb.” (Yes, there really is such a place and yes, I have been there.)  So I was not surprised to find Yuichi traveling with a missionary and his assistant as they try to spread the word of Christ in Tsugaru.  I can still picture the missionary trying to explain the concept of Hell to the children of the village because most of the adults ignore his sermons—or the missionary getting angry at Yuichi for praying at a Shinto shrine and telling him he is not praying to the true God.

In the final story, a different character, also named Yuichi (but with the last name of Ida) returns to Tsugaru for the first time in ten years.  Although he’s been back on numerous occasions, it was usually only for a day or two and purely for business.  On this latest trip, he decides to stay for an extended period of time, planning to spend his days walking around town, meeting friends, taking naps. But after a week, he becomes bored and decides to visit the hot springs at Dake and spend the night at one of the inns.  While he is wandering around, he notices a woman who reminds him of his first visit to the hot springs.

As the title suggests, these stories are about the everyday life of growing up in Tsugaru: from participating in local festivals, to making a pilgrimage up a sacred mountain; fighting with rival neighborhood kids or trying to get in to a show free at the Yanagi theater.  These stories celebrate the joy of growing up in Tsugaru (Aomori Prefecture).

There is something special about reading stories set in places you have visited yourself.  On my latest excursion to Aomori, I went to the hot springs at Dake.  My first visit to a shrine for the New Year was at Mount Iwaki Shrine, and although the Neputa Festival is celebrated in August, there is a place called Neputa Mura in Hirosaki where you can check out the colorful floats and even try your hand at beating one of the large taiko drums.  With all these places still fresh in my mind, I felt as if I were reading my own diary, except all these stories are set in pre-industrial Japan.~Ernie Hoyt

Kimchi & Calamari by Rose Kent (Harper)

This is a title for all those kids who were adoptees and may have faced having an identity crisis at one time or another from not knowing their biological parents.  Although I’m not an adoptee, I couldn’t pass up this book with its interesting title.  However, on a personal note, I met a friend of my sister’s who was going on her own around-the-world solo tour; one of her destinations was a small town in Korea.  Like the protagonist of this book, she also was an adoptee from Korea and decided to go in search of her roots.

Drummer Joseph Calderaro is one mixed-up kid!  Why is that you ask?  Because he has one serious problem.  Joseph is fourteen and is in the 8th grade and his social studies teacher has just handed out an assignment to the class – to write an essay about your ancestors.

Since Joseph has an Italian-American family, this wouldn’t seem to be too much of a problem.  But he was adopted.  The only thing he knows about his biological parents is that “they shipped his diapered butt on a plane from Korea and he landed in New Jersey.”  How is an adopted Korean boy going to write about his family or ancestors he’s never met?

At home, for Joseph’s fourteenth birthday, his father has given him a Corno, a goat horn that Italian men wear for good luck.  His father explains that it’s to protect against malocchio, the “Evil Eye”.  However, Joseph shows no excitement and refuses to wear it.  He makes up some excuse for his father but really he feels that the guys in his class would think it’s weird. If they knew what a cornois, it probably meant that they’re Italian and would wonder why some Korean kid would be wearing this around his neck.  Ah, the trials and tribulations of adolescence.

Joseph’s friend Nash has a great idea.  He suggests to Joseph to look up his ancestors on the internet.  Joseph thought that might be easier than asking his parents for help.  His dad is not pleased with Joseph’s reaction to the corno and when he tries to talk with this mother about his adoption, she always breaks down in tears.  His parents had told him about the day he became part of the Calderaro family.  But what they never told him, was his “MBA – Me Before America”.  His mother had only told him, back when he was in the third grade, that his biological mother had named him Duk-kee and Park was added by the adoption agency.

While Joseph is still worried about writing his essay, the only thing his friend Nash discovers is that Pusan had a record rain fall on the day that Joseph was born.  Thinking of ways to expand his report to 1500 words, Joseph decides to head to his local library.  At the same time, he runs an errand for his mother, taking towels from his mother’s business, a hair salon called Shear Impressions, to the Jiffy Wash Laundry.  Joseph is surprised to find out the owners of Jiffy Wash have sold their business and will be moving to Florida.  He gets another surprise when the current owner mentions that the new owners are Korean!

There is also a new student at school who is in Joseph’s band class.  One look at the new boy and Joseph just knows that he is Korean too.  The following day Joseph is once again the “towel boy” for his mother and heads to Jiffy Wash.  As he opens the door there he runs into the new kid.  Joseph introduces himself and says that they’re in the same band class.  New Kid says his name is Yongsu Han.

When Yongsu calls his “Uhmma” and a Korean lady comes into the room, Joseph figures that “Uhmma” must mean Mom.  When Yongsu’s mother greets Joseph with “Ahn nyong has seh yoh?”, not only does it make Joseph feel a little insecure, he suddenly feels totally out of place.  It doesn’t help matters any when he’s asked if his mother is Korean.  Once he explains that he was adopted he feels like Yongsu’s mother sees him in a different light – a fake Korean who doesn’t speak or understand the language.  The only thing Joseph wants is to get the heck out of Jiffy Wash as fast as he can, but it also makes him want to know more about his Korean heritage.

Back home, Joseph looks through a book on Korean history that he borrowed from the library.  Although he becomes familiar with Korean history from the Yi Dynasty up until the Korean War, he can’t figure a way to making the history a part of his heritage.  Then he comes upon a picture of a man wearing a Gold Medal.  The caption says his name was Sohn Kee Chung who represented Japan during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

A light bulb goes off in Joseph’s head.  He now knows who and how he is  going to write that essay.  Joseph titles his essay “A Medal for Speed and a Life of Honor: My Grandpa Sohn”.  Little does he know, this little white lie will lead to an even bigger problem.  His teacher announces to the class that his essay was chosen to be entered in a National Essay contest!  What is Joseph going to do now?

But I wouldn’t want to spoil the entire story for those who may have had a similar experience.  I think this would be a great story for anyone who was adopted and suffers from having an identity crisis at one point in their life.  Joseph was lucky enough to become part of a loving family and yet, not knowing his heritage seems to have left a little hole in his life.  Although I am not an adoptee, I am the product of a mixed marriage and was brought up bi-culturally, so I can understand wanting to know my own family’s heritage.  Even if you are not an adoptee, it’s a very heartwarming story and you can’t help but feel for Joseph and his growing pains.

星守る犬 [Hoshi Mamoru Inu] by Takashi Murakami (双葉社) (Futaba Sha)

This is a Japanese text only of a graphic novel which has been adapted for the silver screen. It was also chosen as the 2009 Book of the Year by Da Vinci magazine.  The title translates into English as The Dog who Protects Stars, which means wanting something so badly but never being able to satisfy that desire, much like the image of a dog that continues to look longingly at the stars but will never able to grasp them.  (Although this is a manga, the story may be a bit difficult to follow by just looking at the pictures.)

The story starts off with the discovery of an abandoned car in a vast field of sunflowers.  In it, the police find the body of a man.  They also find another body which they at first think is a child but discover to be a dog.  What the police find strange though is that the body of the man has been dead for a year or and year and a half.  However, the dog has only been dead for about three months.

From here, the actual story begins as told through the point of view from the dog.  As a little puppy, the dog is left in a cardboard box.  If it wasn’t for a young girl who takes him home, he might not have survived.  She feeds him, washes him and asks her mother if she can keep him.  Mother says to ask father, so in the meantime, she lets the dog sleep in a basket where they keep their linen.  Dad first meets the dog by getting bitten when he goes to grab a towel.  But even after this beginning, the dog becomes a part of the family.  The daughter who first brought the puppy home names him Happy, plays with him and feeds him delicious treats from time to time.  Mother provides his meals and discipline when he does something bad, but it’s always Father who takes Happy for a walk.

A year passes.  Everyone becomes a little older.  Happy tells us he has aged about seven years.  Happy notices little changes in the family, but Miku the daughter still plays with him,  Mother still feeds him, and Father still takes him for walks.  A few more years pass and the changes become even more noticeable to Happy.  Miku no longer plays with him, lately it’s Father who feeds him but the one thing that doesn’t change is Father taking him for a walk.  But before, Father would always take Happy for a walk late in the day.  These days, Father takes him for a walk around noon.  Happy also notices that they take a different route but the biggest difference Happy notices is that Father doesn’t talk as much as he used to It will be you, the reader, who realizes that Father has lost his job and is also suffering from some illness as the picture in the background shows Father visiting an employment agency and going to the hospital.

More unfortunate news awaits Father when he returns home.  His wife asks for a divorce.  Now Father has no job, no family, no home.  He’s left with a bit of money after the divorce, but his only companion is Happy.

Father says to Happy, “The hell with it, let’s go South.  That’s where my hometown is. Not that there is anything left there.”  And so they are off on a road trip.  Along the way, they meet a homeless boy who becomes their companion for a short while.  The next thing Father knows, the boy has stolen his wallet.  Although, he says to Happy, he’s not really mad about the boy stealing but that they boy didn’t have the humility to ask for help.

Tragedy strikes on their journey.  Happy falls sick.  Father rushes Happy to the nearest vet and pleads with the veterinarians to keep his friend alive. Father sells whatever remains of his belongings and manages to save Happy.  They continue on their journey but run out of gas and money in a vast field of sunflowers.  Father finally succumbs to a sleep he never wakes up from.  Happy lives on and thinks he sees Miku, Mother and Father at a campground and runs to meet them only to be beaten on the head with a stick.  Happy slowly crawls back to where Father is, says he’s tired too and passes away.

Then the story comes back to where it started.  The finding of a body and a dog in an abandoned car in a field of sunflowers.   There is no identification on the body, the license plate of the car is missing, the vehicle identity number has been scratched off.  Finding out who this John Doe is the job of a case worker.  If the man’s identity cannot be discovered, the body will be cremated and the ashes placed in an urn for the unclaimed.  Okutsu-san, the case worker for this job thought it would be a simple matter until he finds a receipt for goods bought at a store.  According to the law, it’s his duty to investigate the matter and so begins Okutsu-san’s own journey on retracing Father and Happy’s steps.

What it comes down to is this--a story about life and all its obstacles, good and bad; of love and loyalty between pet and owner, making us remember why dogs are considered “man’s best friend”.  Although the lives of Father and Happy end in death, who’s to say if they were happy or not. Father and Happy had each other.  They didn’t need anything else.  Truly, a wonderful story that will make you laugh and weep, and wonder about the homeless boy who stole Father’s wallet.  This is the end of one story; however, Happy has a brother…  Ernie Hoyt

Monkey Business : New Writing from Japan Volume 01 / 2011 (A Public Space Literary Projects, Inc.)

Although our blog is titled “Asia by the Book”, I have decided to go against the grain and review a magazine.  But this isn’t just any magazine.  This is the first English language version of a popular Japanese literary magazine called Monkey Business, created in 2008 and named after a line in a Chuck Berry tune.  The Monkey Business Manifesto states that “Monkey Businessis a newly founded journal of new writing from Japan and abroad with a few not-so-new works strategically slipped in.”  It’s my belief that literary magazines deserve as much attention as novels as they are usually full of short stories, novellas, poems, and reviews of upcoming titles.

Published by A Public Space, also a literary journal, Monkey Business is edited by Ted Goossen, translator of Japanese publications into English, and Motoyuki Shibata, known for his Japanese translations of contemporary authors such as Thomas Pynchon, Steve Millhauser and Paul Auster to name a few.  This issue is a compilation of pieces from the magazine’s first year in publication which are now translated into English, including short stories, essays, poems, manga, interviews and more.  Goosen and Shibata do not limit their pieces to Japanese writers, they also feature a few foreign writers as well.

A highlight of this first issue is an interview with popular author and 2010 nominee for the Nobel prize in literature, Haruki Murakami conducted by novelist Hideo Furukawa in 2008, a winner of the Japan Mystery Writers Association Prize and SF Grand Prize for his novel Arabia.  The interview starts off with the two authors discussing writing and where they get their ideas. It follows with Furukawa asking Murukami why he decided to live abroad, about his time spent in the U.S. and writing The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, his return to Japan and writing his first non-fiction book about the Aum Doomsday Cult and sarin gas subway attack.  They also talk about first- versus third- person narrations.  Any fan of Murakami’s works won’t want to miss out on this interview.

One of my favorite stories from this compilation is Sandy’s Lament – from The Memoirs of theSramana Wujing by Atsukshi Nakajima.  This was part of a series of stories based on the Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en which in turn is loosely based on a true story about a monk named Tripataka and his journey to bring back Buddhist scripture from India.  For you trivia buffs and otaku, you may be surprised to know a popular manga series was also based on Journey to the West – Akira Toriyama’s Dragonball!  In the original story, Tripitaka has three companions – Sun Wukong (alias Monkey), Zhu Bajie (alias Pig), and Xia Wujing (alias Sandy).  In the Japanese translation, Sandy would be a kappa, a water spirit.  This short story is narrated by Sandy as he wonders why he and his two companions continue to follow Tripitaka.

The manga in this issue is A Country Doctor by the Brother and Sister Nishioka and based on a story by Franz Kafka.  In keeping with original Japanese style, the manga is read from left to right which means you have to skip ahead a few pages and read the story in descending pages.  There are also poems by Mina Ishikawa, The Sleep Division; Minoru Ozawa, Monkey Haiku; Shion Mizuhara, Monkey Tanka; Masayo Koike, When Monkeys Sing all translated by Ted Goossen, and short stories by Yoko Ogawa, Koji Uno, and Sachiko Kishimoto.

If your only exposure to contemporary Japanese authors has been to Yukio Mishima, Natsume Soseki, Yasunari Kawabata, Shusaku Endo, or Junichiro Tanizaki, then this literary journal will open your eyes to a whole new world.  Be the first of your Japanophile friends to know who the next up- and- coming literary geniuses are and enjoy some new fiction!  The English language version is currently planned as an annual but as more people become familiar with it, perhaps Shibata and Goossen will turn it into a quarterly.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed.  by Ernie Hoyt

Atomic Sushi : Notes from the Heart of Japan by Simon May (Alma Books)

I admit my title of choice may seem to be in poor taste because of the current nuclear power plant crisis in Fukushima Prefecture, but I assure you, this book was released long before March 11’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the tsunami which caused the nuclear disaster.  First published in 2006, this is a collection of essays that British national May wrote while serving as a visiting professor of philosophy at Tokyo University.  As the professor says in his own words when he was unexpectedly invited to teach, his first thoughts were – “The Sushi!”

First of all, we must acknowledge that Japan’s bastion of education – Tokyo University or Todai as it’s locally known—is one of the most prestigious and also the most difficult to enter of all Japanese educational institutions.  It is considered the training ground of Japan’s bureaucrats, the elite of the elite, a closed system that’s virtually impossible to penetrate, especially for foreigners.  May informs us that he was “…apparently the first British professor of philosophy since 1882.”

Since May becomes a part of this elite for the duration of his stay, I must admit that the ordinary traveler and even long standing expats would not be able to experience some of his adventures which were arranged by some of the Todai elites who befriended him.  We are given a glimpse into private “amusement” parlours (you will have to use your imagine as to what you can expect to see there), exclusive sushi shops, luxurious ryokan (Japanese inns) and  kaiseki dining with its price tag  at about $1000 a feast.

What I found most interesting were May’s dealings with the Tokyo University administrators before he was even allowed to teach.  He was expecting a warm welcome but found himself in bureaucratic hell, “…administrators began by demanding that I sign a declaration promising to be a loyal and honourable servant of the Japanese state.”  This seems rather reasonable, however he was soon burdened with further requests: “I needed health tests to certify that my body fluids were unobjectionable and my body solids in good order, a declaration from my landlady about my accommodation costs, a certificate proving that I had attended primary school, a document registering me as an alien, and a diagram to illustrate the exact route I intended to take when traveling from home to university, and then from home to university again.”  It’s an ominous start to his  life in Tokyo.

To illustrate May’s brush with bureaucratic red tape in more detail, you only need to read his response to one of the endless enquiries he had to endure – “When I replied by pointing out that in Britain there is no certifying authority that exists for the purpose of certifying that something is impossible to certify, they asked me to state this with a certificate, certified by myself.”  Perhaps those bureaucrats have just a little too much time on their hands.

However, not all of May’s essays are about the Japanese elite or their exclusive clubs.  He also writes about what he sees: things that may seem ordinary to the average Japanese but strange to most foreigners.  He observes people sleeping while standing or sitting on the trains for their commute home but having the uncanny ability to wake from their slumber at their stop.  He witnesses a man rubbing up his knees against a young girl and wonders what to do; groping in trains is a major problem in Japan which hardly ever makes the news.  May also attends and describes a Japanese wedding and a Japanese funeral—and as I have also been a participant in both, I can tell you it is nothing like what you would expect in the States. But you will have to read this book to find out just how different it is.

This is a must read for any Japanophile.  It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will make you want to visit Japan on your own as well.  Even expats will find this amusing – I should know, as I belong to that particular group.~Ernie Hoyt

John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow by Karen Fang (Hong Kong University Press)

As I was walking to work the other day, I couldn’t help but notice the poster for a forthcoming film that would soon be shown at my local theater, a Korean remake of a John Woo classic –A Better Tomorrow.  Sometime in the mid to late 80s, a friend introduced me to the world of Hong Kong cinema.  This was long before John Woo or Chow Yun Fat became popular in the United States, back when the only opportunity to see Hong Kong films was at small independent theaters that would have Hong Kong film festivals from time to time.  This particular film was probably my first exposure to Hong Kong action movies and after one viewing I was hooked.

But this book isn’t just a film review, it is a critical analysis of the New Hong Kong Cinema and its impact on the film industry at home and abroad.   It explains its rise along with the globalization of film, which both occurred over the same period between the mid 80s and late 90s.

Before this movie was released, John Woo was known as a director of romantic comedies while Chow Yun Fat had the lead role in some movies but was known mostly for the TV soap operas he appeared in.   However, with the release of this film, it became one of the highest-grossing the year of its release and shot John Woo and Chow Yun Fat to superstar fame.  This film also sparked a new genre – the action/crime film, or yingxiong pian which translates to a “hero” movie, which the West described as “heroic bloodshed”.

For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, the plot centers around three main characters – Sung Ji-Ho played by Ti Lung, Mark Gor, or Brother Mark, played by Chow Yun Fat, and Kit played by Leslie Cheung (a very popular pop idol at the time).  Sung Ji-Ho is a successful criminal who built his empire upon counterfeiting.  Brother Mark is his loyal partner.  Kit is Ho’s younger brother who is a cadet in the police academy and does not know that his older brother is involved in criminal activities. On a business trip to Taipei, Ho is framed for a crime he didn’t commit. He eludes the police, however, in order to protect his younger brother and Mark, he decides to turn himself in but insists that a rookie member of his gang, Shing, should escape.  The following day Mark makes a trip to Taipei to avenge Ho and kills most of those responsible but is shot and crippled in the leg.

Ho spends the next three years in prison with hardly any contact with Kit or Mark.  Kit, who learns of his brother’s criminal activities, trains even harder with the police force.  When Ho is released and tries to reach out to Kit by telling his younger brother that he has gone straight, Kit shuns him.  However, Mark is overjoyed at being reunited with his friend and suggests taking revenge on Shing, whom they have discovered was the one who betrayed them.  They plan to do this by exposing Shing to the police and to help Kit advance in his career and to prove that Ho has indeed gone straight.

Everything goes as planned but comes at a really high cost.  Mark is killed but before he dies, he chastises Kit for not recognizing the love Ho has for him.  In the end, Kit goes against police regulations and lets his brother kill Shing.  Ho wants to do right by his younger brother so he handcuffs himself to Kit and returns to police custody.

Getting back to the core of the book, Fang describes the different ways in which the film was received by its home audience and its global prominence as well.  In Hong Kong when the film was first released in 1986, it became a record-breaking blockbuster.  The original title in Mandarin is Yingxiong bense or in Cantonese Yinghuhng bunsik which translates to True Colors of Valor or The Essence of Heroes, suggesting that the plot is about chivalry, family ties, loyalty, and honor.  However, with the international English title of A Better Tomorrow,the foreign press suggested that the movie was politically influenced by Hong Kong’s forthcoming return to China.

However, I’m not one for analyzing movies in minute detail.  If it entertains me, then the movie has served its purpose.  After watching this film, I found myself becoming biased, feeling as if these yingxiong pian films made Hollywood action movies seem like Disney productions.  If this film excites you as much as it did me, you will find yourself becoming a fan of John Woo’s other Hong Kong action films which also star Chow Yun Fat such as Hard Boiled, The Killer, and Bullet in the Head.

I may have to make a trip to my local DVD rental store to watch these all over again.  And of course I look forward to seeing the Korean remake as well.~Ernie Hoyt

ぼくのいい本こういう本1 : 1998-2009 ブックエッセイ集 by 松浦弥太郎[Boku no ii hon kou iu hon 1 : 1998-2009 Book Essays] by Yataro Matsuura (DAI-X出版)

I have a standard New Year’s Resolution that hasn’t changed in the past few years.  My goal is to read at least one hundred books.  This year, I have also added to my resolution to read more books in Japanese.  Before you drop your jaws in awe, I must admit, this includes photography books, children’s books, graphic novels, and literary magazines.  But do you ever find yourself between books and can’t decide what to read next?  It’s at times like this when books full of essays about  books come in handy.

For English publications, there’s always the New York Times Bestseller list but I much prefer Nick Hornby’s column, Stuff I’ve Read,  in the Believer, (http://www.believermag.com/)because it has more eclectic offerings.  His book essays have also been collected into three series of books.

However, not being too familiar with the kinds of title that I might find interesting in Japanese, I discovered this title, Boku no ii hon, kou iu hon, which  translates to My Favorite Books are Books Like These. The essays are arranged into eight sections with chapter titles such as “Books for women are not yet an adult but not a child”, “Books that lit the fire of my wanderlust”, “Literature as a friend”, “Books for people who want to live romantically” and of course a chapter is featured with the main title of the book – “My favorite books are books like these.”

Yataro Matsuura is the editor-in-chief of a magazine called Kurashi no Techo which translates to Notes on Living.  He also owns a book store and is a writer.  He got his start in the book business in 1994 by re-selling foreign magazines.  In 2000, he started a mobile (on wheels) book shop and finally in 2003 opened Cow Books,  which according to the website, “specializes in out-of- print books focusing on the 60s and 70s social movements, progressive politics, Protest, the Beat Generation, and first editions of forgotten modern authors.”

His book is the first volume of a collection of his book essays that he has written for magazines. As I read it, I discovered that Matsuura’s taste in books is similar to my own.  He features a vast array of visual books including photography, art, design and interior decoration, children’s books, cookbooks (which are more than just books with recipes) and a lot of books and zines published by small independent presses.

Since this is a Japanese book, Matsuura also features English titles translated into Japanese.  Some of his favorite authors seem to be Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan, and Paul Auster.  Kerouac’s Japanese translation of On the Road was a life- changing book for him.  Shortly after reading it, Matsuura became inspired to travel across the USA as well, even though he had no plans on what he was going to do once he got there.  Reading these essays has perked my interest in reading those authors as well (even if a lot of people say On the Road is overrated).

One of the books Matsuura features and which captured my interest is Chairo no Asa or Brown Morning. (I discovered that the original was a French book titled Matin Brun by Franck Pavloff, with  new art by Vincent Gallo for the Japanese edition.  I may have to look for an English edition of that book.)  I also want to go in search of a Japanese children’s book titled Yakareta Sakana or The Grilled Fish, about a grilled fish lying on a white plate yearning to go back to the sea.

Before reading Matsuura, I was between books and couldn’t decide what to read next; now he’s given me so many more titles to choose from that it makes selecting the next book just as difficult!  Perhaps I should read the second volume of Matsuura’s book of book essays before choosing another title?  by Ernie Hoyt

This book is available only in Japanese.

Sushi & Beyond : What the Japanese know about Cooking by Michael Booth (Vintage Books)

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you’re asked about Japanese cuisine?  The most obvious answer is found in the title above; I imagine most people would say “sushi”.  But Booth hasn’t written a guide book to sushi and the best places to eat it.  Look at the “& Beyond” and know that there is going to be more than sushi involved in Booth’s exploration of Japanese cookery.

The book starts out with a conversation Booth has with a friend at a restaurant in Normandy called Sa.Qua.Na—but to call this a conversation is a bit tame, Booth trades insults with Toshi, a half-Japanese, half-Korean man who is his fellow-student at the Paris Cordon Bleu.  Booth lightly compares the food of Sa.Qua.Na’s chef to that of Japan’s, knowing that the chef had worked in Japan for a few years.  This sets Toshi off, saying, “What you know about Japan food?  You think you know anything about Japan food?  Only in Japan!  You can not taste it here in Europe.  This man is nothing like Japan food.  Where is tradition?  Where is season?  Where is meaning?...”

Booth’s retort was just as impassioned, if not a bit juvenile – “I know enough about it to know how dull it is…What have you got?  Raw fish, noodles, deep-fried vegetables – and you stole all that from that from Thailand, the Chinese, the Portuguese.  Doesn’t matter though, does it?  You just dunk it in soy sauce and it all tastes the same, right?  Ooh, don’t tell me, cod sperm and whale meat.  Mmm, gotta get me some of those.”

I was beginning to wonder if this was going to be an interesting book after all but my worries were put to rest.  After these two adversaries graduate, Toshi gives Booth a book entitled “Japanese Cooking : A Simple Art” by Shizuo Tsuji.  After reading this, Booth decides to head over to the Land of the Rising Sun to see what all the fuss is about.

His plan is to try a bit of everything there is to eat, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, taking his wife and two young kids with him. Their first stop of course is Tokyo where they rent a small apartment and venture into the culinary heart of Japan in Shinjuku’s famous “Shoben Yokocho.” This translates to “Piss Alley” and it is full of small yakitori shops. Here Booth finds more than just chicken breast on skewers—there’s nankotsu (cartilage), bonjiri (chicken butt), hatsu (chicken hearts).  They go to Ryogoku, Tokyo’s home to sumo wrestlers and also home to an array ofchanko nabe (one- pot stews) shops run and owned by former sumo wrestlers.  Booth interviews Japan’s top chefs and checks out a few restaurants that many Japanese cannot get a reservation to enter. But this isn’t what he really wants. He yearns to make some Japanese dishes for himself and then eat them.

In order to reach this goal, Booth signs up for a couple of cooking classes and also takes a tour of Japan’s two top cooking schools.  The Ecole de Cuisine et Nutrition Hattori, run by Dr Yukio Hattori in the Kanto area which encompasses Tokyo, and the Tsuji Culinary Institute which was founded by the author of “Japanese Cooking” – Shizuo Tsuji— and is currently run by his son in the Kansai area.

But Booth can’t mention sushi without taking a tour of Japan’s busiest fish market – Tsukiji.  He fills us in on the seafood of Hokkaido, the fugu (puffer fish) of Shimonoseki, Kobe beef, wagyu, and how miso is made. He takes a tour of one of Kikkoman’s factories that makes soy sauce, discusses the controversy surrounding MSG, checks out the food- stall culture of Fukuoka in Kyushu, dines on a kaiseki meal in Kyoto and even manages to dine at the extra- exclusive, members- only restaurant called Mibu, “the place that made Joel Robuchon weep and humbled Ferran Adria.”

Anyone who claims to be a “foodie” or a gourmand and sees those two names in the same sentence is definitely going to want to read this book…and will enjoy it.  I know I did!  by Ernie Hoyt

チーズケーキの旅 by 山本ゆりこ (女子栄養大学出版部) [Cheesecake no Tabi] by Yuriko Yamamoto (Joshi Eiyo Daigaku Shuppan-bu)

This book is available only in Japanese.

WARNING!  This book may cause extreme hunger if read on an empty stomach!

In my opinion, one of the joys of life is eating dessert!  And because my favorite dessert just happens to be cheesecake, I had to read this book, with its title easily translated into English as “A Cheesecake Journey”.  Yuriko Yamamoto is a graduate of the Kagawa Nutrition University who moves to Paris and continues her studies at the prestigious Ritz Escoffier School and Le Cordon Bleu. There she receives Le Grand Diplome, and continues to hone her skills at Michelin three- star restaurants and hotels.  Having spent many years living in France, Yuriko has the opportunity to travel throughout Europe.  Although she always assumed that cheesecake was an American dessert, as she journeys to different countries, she finds that almost every country has their own style of cheesecake and cheese-filled desserts.

First she takes us to the country where cheesecake originated – Greece.  It may come as a shock to us Americans, but the first mention of cheesecake in history was served to the athletes in the first- ever Olympic games, long before our nation was even considered a country. There elderly Greek women tell Yuriko that if she wants cheesecake in Greece, she should come three weeks before Apokries (Carnival) in which the third week is called “Cheese Week”.  Before leaving Greece, Yamamoto purchases a book and reads that in Crete, they make a cheese similar to the ricotta cheese of Italy and that they also make cheesecake there as well.  Perhaps Crete should be her next destination, she decides.

However, instead she finds herself traveling through the Russian Federation and Central and Eastern Europe.  This is where the heart of the book truly shines as she features full color pictures of the cheesecakes and cheese- related desserts she comes across.

This book reads more like an illustrated guide to the cheesecakes of Europe.  We are introduced to the Polish sernik polski, the Bulgarian banitsa, Russian blinisand paskha, Austrian topfenrouladen, just to name a few—including dishes made with the dessert cheese,mascarpone.  And of course, since Yuriko lived in France, much of her book is filled with recipes from that country.

Once you’ve had your fill of this book, you may want to treat yourself to a nice big slice of New York- style cheesecake, perhaps with a raspberry or blueberry sauce topping.  As for me, well, there is the “Cheesecake Factory” in my neighborhood that features an all-you-can-eat buffet…of cheesecakes!  I kid you not. There goes my diet.  Ernie Hoyt

孤独の中華そば「江ぐち」by 久住昌之 （牧野出版) Kodoku no Chuka Soba [Eguchi] by Masayuki Kusumi (Makino Publishing)

If I were to translate the title of this book into English, it would be “The Lonely Noodle Shop [Eguchi]”.  If I were to directly translate the title into English, it would be “The Lonely Chinese Noodle Shop [Eguchi]”.  However, the shop is neither lonely, nor does it feature Chinese noodles.  It’s a small neighborhood ramen shop.  Of course there will be those who would argue that ramen is a Chinese noodle but we will leave that debate for another time.

This book is the culmination of a previously out of print book that featured the ramen shop [Eguchi] which was originally published in 1984 and had the extremely long title of 「近くへ行きたい。秘境としての近所―舞台は“江ぐち”とゆうラーメン屋」which translates to something like “I want to go near (or “I don’t want to go far”), an unexplored region of my neighborhood, the stage is a ramen shop called “Eguchi.”  With a title as long as that, it’s no wonder the book went out of print.

If you live in Japan, you will discover there seems to be an infinite number of ramen shops to choose from.  There may be thousands in Tokyo alone.  Unlike the versions found in the States, a lot of the ramen shops have only a counter space with a maximum capacity for maybe ten people.  Some are located in residential areas, or as the original title suggests, in an unexplored region of a neighborhood.  This is the story of just one of them – a ramen shop called Eguchi,the people who work there, the regular customers, including Kusumi himself and his friends who gather there for drinks and snacks.  And of course it’s about the ramen as well.

So why has this book just been reprinted twenty-six years after its first incarnation?  When Kusumi was 26, he was not yet into his third year as a manga artist working for a magazine called “Garo” in which he also had a regular column.  He wrote about his neighborhood ramen shop in three consecutive issues of Garo, one of his editors really enjoyed the pieces, and suggested he write a book about that particular ramen shop, Eguchi.  So he did, without the consent of the ramen shop or staff, giving them pseudonyms that he came up with--Onigawara (Ogre), Akuma (Satan), and Takuya (because Takuya looked like his younger brother, also named Takuya).  He imagined their lives and their personalities, but what he was most detailed about was the layout of the ramen shop, the ramen itself, as well as the three employees who seemed to work on a rotating basis there.

He also wrote about his friends who would join him for a bowl of ramen or a beer at Eguchi--his college senpai (older classmate) who was two years older than he was, his childhood buddy, his high school classmate,  and an older high school friend. He fills us in on other regulars whom he and his friends give nicknames to, such as “the man with the big hair” or the part-time worker they called Okami-san (Matron), and the man they thought might be the owner Tadanao Eguchi, (they were not sure how to read the kanji of his name and if he was the owner or not), who didn’t work at the shop but always brought the freshly made noodles.  Kusumi writes in detail about the way Onigawara, Akuma, and Takuya prepare their ramen, saying sometimes the flavor could be hit or miss, that one bowl was never quite the same as the next.  The book includes rough sketches of the shop as well as caricatures of all the people involved.

But the book didn’t keep Kusumi from remaining a regular customer there.  With a bit of fear and trepidation, he returned to his favorite neighborhood ramen shop time and time again.  Not once did any of the three staff members  ever mention anything about what he had written.

And now for the reason why the book has been reprinted.  Kusumi, now in his forties and no longer living in the neighborhood, still treated himself to a bowl of ramen at Eguchi whenever his work or time allowed him to visit his old neighborhood.  The final half of the book was compiled from blog pieces that he wrote between the ages of 42 and 51, relating to his favorite place to eat ramen. The biggest news was in the final piece-- after having been open for business for twenty-six years, Eguchi was closing its doors for good at the end of January, 2010.  It seems the owner had passed away in his bathtub and there was no one to renew the contract for the shop.

This is as much fun to read as any piece of fiction, (well, admittedly the stories in the beginning of the book behind the main characters who ran the ramen shop were a product of Kusumi’s imagination), filled with the undeniable love Kusumi had for this shop and its ramen, and the people who made it.

After moving to Tokyo, I too had my favorite haunts where I was also welcomed as a regular customer.  Even if I ventured out on my own, I would always find a friend or acquaintance either eating or drinking at one of the places I frequented.  However, unlike Kusumi, I usually became friends with the manager or owner of the establishments I went to.  Americans might have a hard time understanding the intricacies of becoming a regular at a small joint but it does give you a peek into a lesser known part of the Japanese culture.  マスター、付けといて！(Master, put it on my bill!)  by Ernie Hoyt

This book has been published in Japanese text only.

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood (HarperCollins)

What does a former executive of a multi-national corporation like Microsoft have to do with Asia?  Everything!  After spending nearly nine years in the fast lane, with almost all of that time heading up the ladder at Microsoft by working long hours and foregoing extended holidays, John Wood thought it was about time to slow down just a little and take an extended break from the rat race.  His vacation led him to the mountains of Nepal where there were no phones, no internet service providers, no meetings, no commutes and absolutely no connection to the rest of the business world.

On the first day of his three- week trek in the Himalayas, at a small lodge, an eight- year- old boy offers Wood a drink.  Wood asks if they have beer. The boy replies yes, and rushes off to get him a bottle of Tuborg, as if he ran the lodge himself, then apologizes for the beer being warm— but he has an idea!  He asks Wood to wait for ten minutes as he takes the bottle to the nearby river and submerges it into the cold water spawned from glaciers.

Wood says to a local man who watched this exchange in amusement, “Who needs a refrigerator?” This quip begins a conversation that will change Wood’s life.

Pasupathi, the man whom Wood meets at the lodge, is the “district resource person for Lamjung Province,” whose job is to find resources for seventeen isolated schools. The children are eager to learn but there is no money to invest in schools or school supplies.  Some villages have a primary school which teaches only up to Grade 5; if students want to continue their education, they have to walk two hours to the nearest secondary school.  However, families are so poor that children are needed to help with farm work which helps to account for Nepal’s nearly 70% illiteracy rate. Pasupathi says to Wood, “I am the education resource person, yet I have hardly any sources”.

Wood asks to see the school that Pasupathi is on his way to visit and the next day the two men set off on a three-hour trek. At the school Wood is shown a first-grade class with nearly 70 students in a room that can hold barely half that number.  He is taken to eight more classrooms all crowded with eager students who stand in greeting and yell “Good morning, sir” in unison, using perfect English.  The final room Wood sees has a sign on the door that says SCHOOL LIBRARY.  However, the room is empty except for an outdated world map on the wall that still shows countries like the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Yugoslavia.  In his most polite manner, Wood says, “This is a beautiful library.  Thank you for showing it to me.  I have only one question.  Where, exactly, are your books?”

The few books the school has are locked in a cabinet so the students won’t damage them. The library features “The Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia”, “Finnegan’s Wake”, an Umberto Eco novel in the original Italian, and other books forgotten or abandoned by backpackers.  Wood asks the headmaster how many students are enrolled in the school and is informed there are 450!  The headmaster notices Wood’s surprise and says, “Yes, I can see that you also realize this is a very big problem.  We wish to inculcate in our students the habit of reading.  But that is impossible when this is all we have. Perhaps, sir, you will one day come with books” And this is where the story begins.

Back in his room after his long trek, the thought of those 450 kids without books will not leave Wood’s mind and he sends an e-mail to all his friends on Hotmail. The message is short and simple. He has found a school that needs books and desks. He will donate the desks.  Please send books, he asks—and he gives his parents’ address for his friends to send what they can.

Wood tells his parents to expect the arrival of several hundred books—he soon receives a message from his father that says 3000 books have arrived with more coming every day—come home and help us with this. Wood obeys.

Such is the beginning of “Books for Nepal”.  Wood gives up his position at Microsoft and begins to build a nonprofit organization from the ground up, learning how to sell himself and his  ideas to gain sponsors and how to run fundraising events. His business background is an asset; “Books for Nepal” is so successful that Wood expands into Vietnam, Cambodia, India, and Laos. He changes the name of his nonprofit as it grows beyond Nepal, and so sprouts “Room to Read.”

Anybody who loves books as much as I do will find this book inspirational and thoroughly absorbing. Those who want to support “Room to Read” can find more information here.  by Ernie Hoyt

世界のどこかで居候 by 中山茂and 坂口克 （人力社）「Sekai no Dokokade Isourou」by Shigeo Nakayama and Katsumi Sakaguchi (Jinrikisha)

“Isourou” – a difficult word to translate in English.  I went through a number of dictionaries searching for a word that would closely describe the form of travel that that author Shigeo Nakayama and cameraman Katsumi Sakaguchi created.  I also checked with a few online dictionaries and most of them gave the same answer – “to lodge” or “lodging” which is close to what the two were doing but not exactly.  A closer approximation would be “home stay”, but “home stay” usually applies to students and these two are far beyond their university years.  One online dictionary gave the exact definition of what they were doing – “lodger who pays nothing for room and board”, but the other definitions that followed were “freeloader” and “sponger”. So the closest translation of the book title would be Lodging for Free Somewhere Around the World.

Four years!  Eight countries!  Nakayama and Sakaguchi traveled around the world between the years 2004 and 2008.  They set a standard rule for lodging with strangers.  They would stay for no more than a week.  They would not schedule their trip to coincide with any events or festivals, and they would not ask for anything in return, only for the families to live their everyday lives as if they weren’t there.  They would sleep in the same rooms, eat the same foods, and work in the fields with their hosts.  And there would be no guide or interpreters during their stay.

Choosing how long they would stay with each family was another factor they had to decide before leaving.  In Nakayama’s own words, “if the stay is too short, it wouldn’t be considered lodging.  If the stay is too long, we would be wearing out our welcome.”  One week seemed perfect.  As Nakayama also says, “the first day you would be considered honored guests.  The second day, the children would start to get used to you, by the third day, it would make no difference if you were there or not”.  It was Nakayama and Sakaguchi’s goal to reach this point, at which time they believed that the families would start telling them their true thoughts, feelings, and desires.

Nakayama says every country seems to have a distinct smell.  For example, Korea has the smell of kimchee.  France has the smell of cheese.  Thailand has the smell of fish sauce.  Egypt has the smell of antique books.  For Mongolia, Nakayama says that the country’s odor is of feet!  And this is the first country where their “lodging for free” experiment would start.  The first family they lodged with were nomads living in a yurt on the great plains two hours away by jeep from the capitol of Ulan Bator.  A few years before, the Mongolian government had given this family the ownership and responsibility for watching over one hundred head of livestock. The family was well-known in the area for being one of the few that included a yak in their herd.  As to the reference of “smelling like feet”, Nakayama says it came from the various homes airing out their socks that most families wear for a week or more.  In Mongolia, it is the custom to build a new yurt for newlyweds, and during their weeklong stay, Nakayama and Sakaguchi would help build one for the son of their host family who had recently gotten married.

The next country where they “lodged without paying for room or board” was on the Saudi peninsula of Yemen.  The first thing they learned about this country is that there is no true government.  Of course there is a central government based in the capital of Sana’a, but its main purpose seems to be dealing with foreign affairs.  Yemen is a tribal country and an Islamic society.  It took Nakayama and Sakaguchi a little while to get used to the qat- chewing(similar to the coca leaf of South America but the qat is legal in Yemen), Kalishnikov- carrying men, who also were equipped with a jambiya (dagger with a short curved blade).

Following Yemen, the pair lodged with tribesmen in Papua New Guinea, stayed with a family in Ladakh, in the state of Kashmir in India, spent a week in the Atlas Mountains and another week lodging with a family living in the Sahara Desert in Morocco.  They also lived with a family whose home was in one of the floating villages of the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia.  The final country where they became lodgers was in Nepal, at Galegaon, a community known for its village tourism and adventure trekking.

Sakaguchi’s full color pictures, along with Nakayama’s illustrations of the various homes around the world that sheltered these travelers make this one entertaining book.  They  give us a peek at what ordinary life is like in some of the most unlikely places.  Overcoming language barriers, eating unfamiliar foods, they give us a small glimpse into how diverse the cultures of our world really are.  The pair discovered that people are alike everywhere. All whom they stayed with welcomed their guests as family once they became accustomed to the novelty of having strangers lodge in their homes, which I think says a great thing about humanity.  by Ernie Hoyt

(This book is only available in Japanese.)

Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan by Jamie Zeppa (Riverhead Books)

In a world where few corners contain a road less traveled, Bhutan is still not a key destination  on the backpacker trail. It is famous for its beauty and its spot on the happiness index, which is just another way of evoking Shangri-La.

When Jamie Zeppa went there as a volunteer English teacher, she detested the place. A chicken effortlessly demolished her high-tech flashlight, the gas stove terrified her, and the children she taught all seemed to have the same name. She lived on cookies and counted the days before she could escape back home to Canada, but her small students had other ideas. Taking her in hand, they brought her fresh food, taught her to use a pressure cooker, and helped her learn to love the village life. Then she was transferred.

In a university setting, Jamie has all the comforts she has learned to live without, from a garden apartment to sliced bread. Her students are all fluent in English and fall into her own age-group. As she helps them discover the intricacies of Macbeth, they give her inklings into the political disruptions that lurk beneath the idyllic surface of the country she has learned to love.

People from the north of Bhutan mistrust the southern Bhutanese, many of whom have roots in Nepal and carry that culture with them. Differences in dress become deadly divisions for some, with Bhutan's "national dress" becoming a symbol of the country's culture and traditions. In Bhutan, Jamie learns, there is "not a dress code but a dress law." And speaking the Nepali language is considered a act of sedition.

Terrified of having its culture and language over-run by people from another country, Bhutan tightens its restrictions and what was a rift becomes a Situation. There is talk of separatism and some of Jamie's students leave the university to fight the "anti-nationals." There are rumors of torture and students who were imprisoned for treasonous acts return to class, "looking years older."

"This is not about democracy or human rights, I think...I have not heard one person speak of mediation or negotiation or even the listening that is necessary for understanding. There is no recognition of any overlap, any common ground...it is a case of two solitudes."

"I love the view," Jamie observes, "but I would not want the life." And then she falls in love, with a man who speaks Nepali when he talks in his sleep, and the life she is reluctant to take becomes in some way hers forever.

This is a love story, but not one between two people. It is a common theme of how a Western woman falls in love with an Eastern country--yet there is nothing common about the thoughts and perceptions and images that Jamie Zeppa brings to this. Her book is one that illuminates on many levels--spiritual, political, cross-cultural.

When she takes the refuge vows that show her commitment to following the path of Buddhism, Jamie realizes, "The practice is the practice...For the rest of my life." Her book plainly reveals how that practice has enhanced her life in Bhutan, in Canada, with the man she loves or without. Reading her words will burnish the perspective of any woman who has fallen in love with an Asian country--or yearns for the chance to do this.

Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love and Language by Deborah Fallows (WalkerBooks)

"One spring day in Beijng, I was trudging home from the local market with bags of bright vegetables and fresh, soft tofu. Few people were out, and my eyes were on the ground to watch my step around the minor rubble and broken bits of pavement. It was not a pretty walk. Then I heard it, sotto voce but clearly distinguishable above the whine of nearby traffic, "Hello, I love you. Buy my jade. I love you!"

This paragraph makes me see and feel and breathe Beijing every time I read it--and I feel a mixture of envy and gratitude surging toward the woman who wrote it.  A linguist who has a Ph.D in linguistics, Deborah Fallows decided to study Mandarin during the three years that she spent in China--and lived to tell the tale in a collection of perceptive and sparkling essays about a country that can be puzzlingly opaque to those without a knowledge of its language.

She is a woman whose descriptive talents are as sharp as her powers of observation and sense of humor. Whether she's prowling through a Beijing weekend "dirt market," watching people bargain for jade, agate, lapis and"petrified-looking walnuts," or shopping at a Wal-Mart "with touches like duck carcasses hanging from hooks," she discovers unexpected dimensions through the language she has painfully and painstakingly learned. The abrupt and brusque delivery of requests in Mandarin troubles her until she learns how to soften this impact with a double verb, and when finding out the reason why 4 is shunned and 8 sought after in China, she also understands why clocks are never given as wedding gifts.

Using a faulty tone when satisfying her craving for cheese in a Beijing Taco Bell leads her to a thoughtful exploration of why Chinese people hear tones while Westerners don't, and her explanation of the word renao (hot and noisy) is a brief and brilliant dissertation on life in China.

Chinese, Deborah Fallows says, is one of the most difficult languages to learn; it took, she says, " a good eighteen months before I pummeled enough in my head to accumulate a critical, usable mass of vocabulary." Once this is acquired, she is able to use language to help her in a traditional Chinese custom, breaking the rules, as she assures a security guard at the Beijing Olympics that a forbidden Toblerone bar is actually her much-needed medicine.

Looking at China through its language allows Fall0ws to look at a certain amount of the country's psychology: why "please" and "thank you" are infrequently used among close friends and are actually considered impolite; why "I love you" is seldom voiced; why pronouns are often omitted in speech. And she learns at a Beijing conference from "one exasperated Chinese participant," what the ordinary Chinese person really wants--"a flush toilet, a refrigerator, and a colour TV."

It'a possible to spend time in China--or at least Beijing--without knowing any Mandarin, but Deborah Fallows makes it clear that the more language we acquire, the more at home we will feel, "if just for a little bit, in this extraordinary country."  by Janet Brown

English by Wang Gang (Penguin)

We may all be familiar with the old adage, "Don't judge a book by its cover", but we should also include a new saying as well, "Don't judge a book by its title!"  "English" may sound rather bland; it may even be mistaken for a text book for ESL students and left untouched.  If this is the case,  readers will miss out on one of the best novels I've read this year.

This is Wang Gang's first novel to be translated into English from the Chinese.  The story is loosely based upon the author’s own life as he remembers living through China's Cultural Revolution.  The hero and the narrator of the story is twelve-year old Love Liu who lives in China's remote northwest region in a small village called Urumchi and now relates the novel through his adult perspective.

The story starts out with Love Liu's teacher Ahjitai entering the classroom with tears running down her face.  Love Liu describes her as a "double turner", which in Urumchi means that "the mother is Uyghur and the father is a Han Chinese, or the other way around." She was also the most beautiful woman in all of Urumchi.

The previous year, the class had stopped learning Russian and Ahjitai, being part Uyghur, had taught the students a bit of Uyghur.  But boys being boys, they didn't really care about the languages, they just enjoyed having a teacher as beautiful as Ahjitai...and now she was leaving.

The following day, Love Liu is surprised to see a well dressed man at school and quickly surmises that this man is the new English teacher.  His name is Second Prize Wang and he has just arrived from Shanghai.  But what really catches Love Liu's eyes is the navy blue book Second Prize Wang is holding, an English dictionary.  And with Love Liu's desire to learn English and to speak it well, a friendship grows between Love Liu and his teacher, much to the annoyance of his neighbor and competitive classmate Sunrise Huang.

Love Liu becomes obsessed with the dictionary as he tries to persuade Second Prize Wang to let him borrow it.  When his teacher refuses, Love Liu devises a plan to steal it.  But his plans fail as he almost gets caught—and discovers that his teacher Second Prize Wang is in love with Ahjitai.  He unwittingly lets his neighbor Sunrise Huang know, who gets jealous and tells the authorities that yes, Second Prize Wang had touched her during the private lessons he had been giving her.  As this is China during the Cultural Revolution, the slightest rumor or innuendo of misconduct can result in harsh punishment.  In the case of Second Prize Wang, Sunrise Huang’s false confession to the authority results in Second Prize Wang being sent to a labor camp. He was already under suspicion as an outsider, and  has no way to prove that Sunrise Huang has lied.

I don’t want to give away the ending of such a great book so you will have to read this to find out what happens to Second Prize Wang.  Will he die in the labor camp?  Will he ever be free again?  Will Sunrise Huang tell the truth to the authorities?  And what of Love Liu and his determination to own the navy blue English dictionary?   Finding the answers to these questions  makes reading this book well worth the effort.  by Ernie Hoyt

The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones (Picador)

“Early this morning, several hours before my arrest, I was woken by an earth tremor.  I mention the incident not to suggest that there was a connection – that somehow the fault lines in my life came crashing together in the form of a couple of policemen – for in Tokyo we have a quake like this every month.  I am simply relating the sequences of events as it happened.  It has been an unusual day and I would hate to forget anything…”

What a great opening for the story told by Lucy Fly – an Englishwoman from Yorkshire who currently works as a translator in Tokyo and has just been arrested in connection with the disappearance of another British woman – Lily Bridges.  The police have discovered a torso in Tokyo Bay believed to be part of the remains of Lily Bridges and the last person to be seen with the dead woman was none other than Lucy Fly.  There was an altercation between the two as well, according to a witness.

Although a friend of Lucy’s tells her to act normal when being questioned by the police, she is not all that cooperative, as she does not want to implicate her friend and lover Teiji.  The mystery takes on a whole new life as the police continue to question Lucy. Slowly she divulges to us, the readers, why she left her home and family in the first place.  How she became friends with Lily.  And then with Teiji.  And how their three lives intertwined.

What brought Lily together with Lucy was the fact that they were from the same area in England—although Lucy wasn’t really thrilled with hanging out with someone from her old neighborhood, as she moved to Tokyo to get as far away as she could from her roots. Still, Lucy couldn’t help but like Lily, who had a friendly and positive attitude towards life.

Lucy seems resigned to the fact that she’s guilty of something. She may not be directly implicated in Lily’s death and mutilation, but somehow she feels responsible for it.  Could the usually reserved Lucy really be a killer in disguise?  Why is she being so uncooperative with the police?  Does she really have something to hide?  Or does she just not care what is going to happen to her?  The outcome may surprise you and might make you rethink your position on the power of love.

This debut novel set entirely in Japan is the kind of story that stays with you long after you have finished reading the book.  At first, I was undecided in featuring this title or not, but after much thought, and seeing how the story stayed with me for a while, it was clear to me that other people will enjoy it as well.  by Ernie Hoyt