A Ride in the Neon Sun

Rating:
Summary: Long, repetitive, full of fallacies and self-congradulation
Review: I loved Josie Dew's first book, "The Wind in my Wheels" when I read it back in 1990, shortly after a long, solo bicycle tour I took in Europe. She was wide-eyed and playful then, writing solely about the experiences that she met along the way, without trying to define the nature of the countries she encountered. So when Neon Sun came along, naturally I snatched it up at the bookstore here in Tokyo, where I live. At first I had mixed reactions about what I started reading. Here again capered the ever-undaunted sprite of Josie Dew, this time in Japan. However, as the book went on it grew more into a collection of facts than of a bicycle journey. Granted, Dew has done her homework, but nearly all the knowledge in the book is second or third-hand, all strung together to give the impression that Dew is knowledgeable about Japan- which she is decidedly NOT. All she has ended up doing is writing yet ANOTHER "this is Japan" book, by one of those fleeting passersthrough who can't even speak the language.

As someone who has lived in Japan and associated with it for nigh on 31 years (I grew up and worked here altogether 19 years), speaks Japanese, most of whose friends are Japanese, teaches English to Japanese students, loves the country as my own, has Japanese in-laws, and has bicycled in most of the areas that Dew writes about and more, her ignorant statements about what the country is all about infuriated me, because she is perpetuating myths about Japan that are simply not true. A few examples: the Japanese do NOT speak the way she has rendered their English dialogue; "Fuji-san" does NOT mean "honourable Fuji"...(the "san" here is the formal, Chinese reading of the character for mountain, otherwise read as "yama"...Fuji-san should not be called "Fujiyama" as so many westerners mistakenly read the characters); counter to Dew's proclamation, the Japanese LOVE camping (go to any bookstore and peruse the magazine racks); and all women are NOT subservient to men here (to imply so is deeply insulting to women and men in Japan, an arrogance that attempts to render them as somehow not modern or "liberated"...go DEEPLY into the daily culture of the people before you judge them..that means speak to them in THEIR language, on their terms, women and men included..I doubt that in Dew's tiny period in Japan that any of her hosts felt intimate enough to open such controversial issues with her, especially because most Japanese know how vehemently westerners feel about the issues). The scene that finally was the last straw for me was when Dew was staying with Motoharu and Hiromi Nakashima. One evening Mrs. Nakashima asks that Dew sit down with her husband for a conversation. Because Mrs. Nakashima does not join them, Dew immediately interprets it as Mr. Nakashima's acting the chauvinist male. But reading the way the conversation ensued, I gathered that Mr. Nakashima was trying to conduct a very serious talk with her, from an elder to a younger person, about his and Mrs. Nakashima's worry about her safety. Having Mrs. Nakashima out of the room signified that they probably didn't want to embarress Dew with weight of what they wanted to say by having too many people in the room. That is why Mrs. Nakashima moved about so quietly. When the conversation touched upon the difference between GB-UK, that was probably just an ice-breaker, something to make convesation before launching into what Mr. Nakashima thought was a serious matter. What hit me was when confronted with the problem of GB-UK, Dew couldn't even give an educated reply, spewing an inanity like, "Why couldn't Motoharu ask me something easy, like how many ball-bearings did I have in the fixed cup of my bottom bracket?" And here she is, a whole 689 pages of knowing all about Japan, and she can't even answer a simple question about her own culture! I threw the book down on the floor in disgust.

There are better travel books about Japan out there, namely Alan Booth's "The Roads to Sata", and better bicycle journey books, like Tom Vernon's "A Fat Man On a Bicycle" or Dervla Murphy's bicycle books.

I have been close to Japan all my life and have met and read stories by countless people who claim to know all about Japan, and yet have spent very little time here or cannot speak the language. It is hard to understand why such people are taken seriously in America and Europe. Surely such people, if they were to make such statements about countries in Europe or North America, would be laughed out of the publishing industry? Japan is not an "exotic" place. It is a place of human beings, not so different from any one else.

Rating:
Summary: An encyclopaedia of cliches
Review: Looking forward to a nice fat read, I found myself losing interest after the first 100 pages or so as Ms Dew served up cliche after cliche about Japan and the Japanese (Isn't Tokyo really big and aren't Japanese people really small?). One of the weaknesses of this book is the fact that Ms Dew has read several generic texts on Japan and now seems determined to regurgitate every last fact for our benefit. Another is Ms Dew's "auto-exotica"; her constant description of herself as a "mad gaijin" or "wild-eyed barbarian" is irritating in it's repetition, like a joke you have heard a hundred times. Similarly, she slips into the old, annoying foreigner-in-Japan habit of employing Japanese vocabulary for everyday English words (hence her bicycle is given the honour of becoming "jitensha" for the duration of the book). The latter half of this volume improves in that, having run out of generalisations, Ms Dew gets on with detailing the locations and people she encounters, and this she does beautifully. What a pity, then, to lapse every few pages into "don't the Japanese write funny things on their T-shirts"-mode. This book doesn't fail in it's mission because it never really decides what it's mission should be- is it a travelogue or a potted-Japan guide book. I bought it as the former and was disappointed when it included much of the latter too. Buy this book if Japan unknown to you- you'll enjoy it! If you are not a complete Japan novice, know that what you are getting here is some good and interesting anecdotal writing mixed with a hefty dose of everything you have read before. And the Bill Bryson comparisons? Hmm, I don't think so. Not even the female one.

Rating:
Summary: Japan, magnet for brainless, aspiring travel writers...
Review: This book is shockingly poor. The Japan I have lived in for 5 years (as an English teacher) bears no resemblance to the Japan depicted by this trite slab of pulp unworthy of its own binding. Sadly, I realise that this 'gaijin' fool - this blacksmith of gross cultural simplifications, this purveyor of only the best-known cliches - is not alone. Her inadequate, self-flattering account recalls anecdotes I hear from other English teachers. Faced with such defiant, cultural adversity, their love of cultural difference morphs into a reinforced belief in the superiority of their own culture. They love and yet they hate, so why do they stay? My advice to Josie Dew: on yer' bike, it's time to go home and stay home.