Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures

Rating:
Summary: It's an old story to me.
Review: I am 24years old Japanese. This book was pretty interesting to me when I saw it at the bookstore by accident because I moved to california from Japan a couple of years ago.
While I was reading the book, I was kinda confused because almost everything what she wrote about Japanese culture seemed like old stuff to me. I don't want people who read this book to believe everything. In my opinion, she exaggerated the fact too much(I'm not saying about her family, but Japanese culture).
She hasn't live in Japan for twenty years, so she doesn't know well what's going on in Japan NOW. People and Culture have changed a lot. She wrote the old facts about Japanese culture as if those are going on right now. She just lived in old Japan.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful writing, honest feeling, insightful observation
Review: I loved reading Kyoko Mori's Polite Lies, and will read all her books. I greatly admire her lovely writing style and enjoyed spending time with this thoughtful, perceptive, gentle cultural observer. I have a lifelong fascination with Japanese culture, and felt the truth of Mori's experiences (I was an American child in Tokyo in 1952-54.) I'm also interested in gender issues, art, writing, and comparative cultures in general, so I found her to be a delightful companion and guide. I can imagine that she would indeed be a good interpreter of American culture for the Japanese, just as she enlightens Americans about the Japanese. Thank you Ms. Mori--good work!! Keep writing!

Rating:
Summary: Redundant to her "Dream of Water" work
Review: I understand her pain in losing her mother through reading the work "Dream of Water." However, it is quite unfair to base the entire society of Japan around one family. That's similar to someone else saying "Well I had a bad childhood and my father beat me and my mother was a severe drug user so therefore everyone else in the United States beats their children and uses drugs."

I notice that she discusses social issues which are also a bit too general. People are individuals and don't act alike, even in conformist societies -- we all have little quirks. Therefore, it's unfair to generalize about social characteristics of the Japanese. Also, because she had one or two experiences with vulgarity on the trains in Japan doesn't make a whole race of men pigs. We have problems with people acting up in New York City subways, but that doesn't make every person in NY insane or vulgar.

If it wasn't for her great writing style I'd be severely disappointed. However, I still find myself floating in and out of reading the book while reading on the train, and it's not because the people are being vulgar or obnoxious, it's just redundant to her last work. I was also very turned off to her treatment of her husband, and I agree with other reviewers that her rationale is clouded at points. I would rework this into a more socially - current work if I were Ms. Mori, because there's definitely nothing wrong with the writing.

Rating:
Summary: Lies, but hardly polite
Review: If I were a non-Japanese reader who knew nothing of Japan's modern culture, I would have been awed by the revelations this book revealed. As I am not such an uninformed reader, I can not be impressed by this novel. As a note, I am also 16, not 12. I forgot my password and used the children't form.

Kyoko Mori, a Japanese turned American woman, explores the cultures of Japan and the United States. I am not an expert on American culture as I have never even visited its mainland. What I can say is that her information on Japan is outdated, biased, and yet seems authoritive. Her information is far from perfect as I know from my own life experiences. Public schools in Japan are not how she portrays them.

She claims to be comparing the two cultures from across the globe so I expected a fair, good-and-bad account of each from a person with such a background. It was more of an oppurtunity for her to put down Japan, a country that she no longer knows anything about, and a country that I love despite my complaints.

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Summary: Observations from the inside of Japan
Review: Ms. Mori, in her social commentary and comparison between the Midwest and Japan, exposes the soft underbelly of contemporary Japanese culture. Having hosted over 25 exchange students from Japan (all women) I began to have a deeper understanding of what their experience of Japan really was.

To be sure, Ms. Mori is an English professor, and her social examinations are based on her own experience, yet her generalizations do strike a chord with what I have come to know of both Japanese and American culture. While we either praise or damn other cultures what I have found is that both cultures have their flaws.

What I found most interesting is that she has confirmed my thesis that Japan never had a Renaissance. The country went directly from a Feudal state to an Industrial state without the pain of dealing with the questions of humanity. The social structures of Japan still reflect the Feudal culture of the Tokugawa era.

To be sure, there are beauties in both cultures. And, a bad childhood can easily mask the good side of the culture you live within. Read this book if you want to understand contemporary Japan from the eyes of a child who lost her mother and had an abusive father. There is a lot of pain and suffering found here. There are also the seeds of what will be the yet to come Japanese Renaissance. That will be interesting to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Polite Lies
Review: The author Kyoko Mori compares the two cultures of Japan and the United States critically picking out the good -- and bad in each.

Her thoughts are clear and her writing includes detailed descriptions that support her opinions and the points she brings up throughout the book.


I don't know what neighborhood that Kyoko grew up in but all of the points she makes about women's rights in Japan seem so outdated. To all Americans and non-Japanese people reading this book, please don't believe everything it says as the current ideals of Japan. Some of it is so old.

Rating:
Summary: What a lie...
Review: This book looked interesting, it really did. But when I started reading it... what a disappointment!
Readers will see that Ms. Mori had a well... traumatic childhood experience, but does she need to bring down Japan explaining that? I'm a Japanese citizen who is currently living in the United States. I can therefore say that about 99% of the culture information in that book is outdated by about 284829439032 million years. Literally.
If Ms. Mori can't put her past behind her, fine. Just don't bring down another country's culture to be what it was in the stone age. You're over 50 years behind, and if you can't see the good of Japanese culture, don't talk about it.
To all non-Japanese people reading this book, please don't believe what it is saying. It's all a bunch of outdated facts. Yes, it's beautifully written, but the meaning behind there is bad. Maybe it was in another one of her books, but she has a lot of bashing on the Japanese public school system too. Something like, "I would never have received leniency for writing in my own answers to multiple choice questions in a Japanese public school." ANTA BAKA KAI? You're not supposed to write your own answers to multiple choice questions! What do you EXPECT!?
In all, this book was bad.