Rating: 
Summary: Maybe I'm a grumpy old man...
Review: ...but I just didn't like this book.
I live in Japan, and the Japan the author describes just doesn't jibe with what I see around me every day. The author claims that her status as a university professor do not make her experiences special or unique. However as someone who has been in a similiar situation and now leads a more normal life, I say that it MUST. I also found her criticism of other foreigners unfair and prone to caricaturization. While there is value in observing the "ugly tourists" and those who have "gone native," it is also important to look inside to see if we can find any of those people inside ourselves. The author chooses not to, and comes across as somewhat elitist as a result.
I was confused by the author's representation of her linguistic skills. She often claims to have little language ability, but then she also claims to have complex communications with people who do not speak English. I had great difficulty justifying the two ideas, as my own experience has been that even when you think you know what is going on, you probably don't. And I speak, read and write Japanese quite well.
I had difficulty with her presentation of a Japanese man who has an outspoken, artistic, independent French wife as typical. I have known a few people like that, and while I'm glad they are my friends, I wouldn't dare try to pass any of them off as typical.
Finally, I got the feeling that the author wasn't really "going to" Japan as much as she was "running away" from America. In her book, Japan generally receives favorable treatment, while America is often criticized. The author seems to have a thinly-veiled Lafcadio Hearn complex, where she wants to replace her American identity with a Japanese one. I have lived here for quite some time, and while I enjoy many aspects of living here, I know it is impossible for an outsider like myself to ever be assimilated. I have accepted my role as a perpetual guest, and I have learned to respect and enjoy my American identity. (At least when not surrounded by Americans acting like idiots.) Not only does the author seem to want to give up her American identity, it seems like the image of her desired Japanese identity is romanticized and unrealistic. That is an unhealthy way to live and an invitation for disappointment....
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Summary: An essential essay of Japan and its culture
Review: 36 Views of Mount Fuji was extremely engaging to read and helped so much with a paper I was writing comparing Japanese and American culture. A must read for anyone looking to understand or fascinated with Japan.
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Summary: Great for anyone travelling in an unfamiliar culture
Review: A friend of mine gave me this book before I went to study in Costa Rica. It was given to her by a friend before she went to study in Austria. I loaned it to a fellow student, and then I gave it to a friend who spent her junior year in Spain. This book is a wonderful read for anyone who can relate to culture shock. And after you have travelled, you will find that you can probably relate to some of it in very amusing ways. Anyone who loves to travel or loves to learn about different cultures needs to read this book.
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Summary: An interesting & sensitive encounter with Japan
Review: an interesting outlook on a different culture
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Summary: A Gaijin Handbook!
Review: As an American "sensei" in Japan, I felt like I was reading my exact experience here! I laughed aloud and completely related to everything Ms. Davidson described in this book. I too, am completely mesmerized with this culture, yet painfully aware of my foreign status. The author capitvated me from the first page with her wonderful conversational storytelling. Ms. Davidson..."Yoku dekimashita!" (Well done!)
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Summary: Thank you, readers!
Review: As an author of a book that has received wonderful reviews but will never be a bestseller, it is so gratifying that READERS are keeping this book alive by their eager, enthusiastic, and obviously vocal "word of mouth." We're now in the fifth (small!) printing--and it is because you are telling your friends, recommending it to your bookclubs, and on and on. Thank you. For those of you who liked _Fuji_, I have a new book coming out from Norton in April. With photographer Bill Bamberger, I'm publishing _Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory_, the story of what happened when a 103-year old family business was bought out by a conglomerate and then closed down. Bill's photographs (he was there for the final four months of the closing) are very moving. I profile six people (from the CEO to the only woman in the "rough mill" of the furniture factory) to try to understand contemporary macro-economics in human, intimate terms. The way this is like _36 Views of Mt. Fuji_ is that it again tells a large story by looking at small, personal encounters. Again, thanks for reading--and thanks for telling your friends.
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Summary: Fascinating and heart-felt, it touched me deeply
Review: Cathy Davidson's account of her ambivalent love-affair with Japan was a delightful surprise to find. I came across it quite by accident and was amazed at my emotional reactions to her experiences, both in Japan and back home in the U.S. Her descriptions of being a foreigner in a land you love but cannot quite grasp completely really struck a chord with this expatriate and I raced towards the final chapters although I never wanted it to end!This book has made a genuine impression on me and I find myself thinking about Cathy, her love for a country in which she could never fit in, her family and her Japanese-style house in North Carolina weeks after I have finished reading. Maybe one day she will return to Japan and we will be graced with more of her fascinating insights into this most intriguing of lands.
Rating:
Summary: Looking for Home in All the Best Places
Review: Davidson has written a wonderful book, more memoir than travelogue, on her trips to Japan both as a tourist and as a visiting professor. She has a real eye for the telling detail and the apt turn of phrase. Several of her vignettes (the Japanese lady in Paris, the futile attempt to learn Japanese in an intensive, formal course, the pilgrimage with her stepson) are small gems that linger in my memory. The heart of the book, though, is not so much what Davidson saw of Japan but what Japan did to Davidson, and what she learned of herself from her trips there, and from her longing to steep herself in many aspects of Japanese life that even she acknowledges are more a fantasy of Japan than the reality -- a reality that she and her husband confront when they consider transplanting themselves to Japan. This quandry -- I want to find my home, but where is it? -- is one that I think many of us will appreciate, and the solution that she and her husband reach is elegant and satisfying. Although much of the book revolves around "composite" characters and institutions, every situation rings true.
Rating:
Summary: Looking for Home in All the Best Places
Review: Davidson has written a wonderful book, more memoir than travelogue, on her trips to Japan both as a tourist and as a visiting professor. She has a real eye for the telling detail and the apt turn of phrase. Several of her vignettes (the Japanese lady in Paris, the futile attempt to learn Japanese in an intensive, formal course, the pilgrimage with her stepson) are small gems that linger in my memory. The heart of the book, though, is not so much what Davidson saw of Japan but what Japan did to Davidson, and what she learned of herself from her trips there, and from her longing to steep herself in many aspects of Japanese life that even she acknowledges are more a fantasy of Japan than the reality -- a reality that she and her husband confront when they consider transplanting themselves to Japan. This quandry -- I want to find my home, but where is it? -- is one that I think many of us will appreciate, and the solution that she and her husband reach is elegant and satisfying. Although much of the book revolves around "composite" characters and institutions, every situation rings true.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent insight for those plannings trip outside USA
Review: Excellent book that provided reader a chance to experience Japan through the author. Included wonderful moments while traveling in Japan by herself and with her husband and/or family. Highly recommended!
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