(Travel) Books on Japan

I still like to read print books even though there is a tremendous amount of useful information on the Internet.  Unfortunately when I take out print travel guides on Japan and Tokyo and start reading, I find them extremely boring.  I don't really want to know what museums, shrines, temples, castles and historic locations I should see.  I'm much more interested in everyday life in Japan, the convenience stores, supermarkets, department stores that Japanese visit.  Maybe that is why I like the Japanology documentaries.

I've read two travelogues on Japanese food: Super Sushi Ramen Express which is an entertaining account of a British food writer and his family's stay in Japan (with two boys aged 4 and 6 how can it not be entertaining?); and Rice Noodle Fish, Deep Travels through Japan's Food Culture, whose author takes both himself and his food more seriously and so is harder to finish.  I think I'm prepared for Japanese food although I'll have problems with the slimy soybean natto and dipping things into raw egg.

I picked up a couple of books with short essays on Japan: To Japan with Love, A Travel Guide for the Connoisseur, which contains little vignettes on living in Japan by foreigners; and Living Japan, Essays on Everyday Life in Contemporary Society, a collection of often amateurish short essays by Japanese.  Both books are much easier to read than a Lonely Planet travel guide because they tell stories and aren't just a list of the top 10 sites or the top 10 restaurants where I can only anticipate encountering tourists.

And then there is The Japanese House: Material Culture in the Modern Home by Inge Daniels, a Belgian anthropologist, which is pretty easy to read considering it is a scholarly work.  Contrary to what all Americans think, the Japanese have as much trouble with "stuff" as we do.  The Japanese have a strong gift culture so that they end up with lots of souvenirs and mementos which are hard to throw away and that don't fit into their small houses and apartments. The Japanese Design Institute considers the current state of affairs a "domestic disarray" and since the woman is in charge of the house, of course it is her fault...  What I find most interesting is that after 40 years, the family tears down their house and builds a new one [Correction:  the average is 26 years].

More books are coming:  Tokyo on Foot and Tokyo: A Certain Style.  The latter book "shows how, for those living in one of the world's most expensive and densely packed metropolises, closet-sized apartments stacked to the ceiling with gadgetry and CDs are the norm."

Stay tuned.

Maotai, Mooncakes & Monks

Currently I'm reading a book by expat Hong Konger Jessica Bellas about her experience living in Hong Kong, to which she moved in 2006. It was printed in Hong Kong and the only reason I can figure that the Green Tree Public Library had an autographed copy is that the author was born in Library, PA, in the South Hills. It is fairly interesting even though it is supposedly a compilation of emails she sent home, essentially a blog. One thing becomes clear: there is a large expatriate community in Hong Kong which appears to operate independently and quite separately from the Chinese majority. Bellas ostensibly moved to Hong Kong to get away from George W. Bush but the choice of Hong Kong, run by big business and government bureaucracy with little input from the people, seems like a weird alternative.

City Between Worlds

So that I don't forget the name of this book on Hong Kong that I enjoyed because it was well written and informative, here are the details:
City Between Worlds: My Hong Kong
By Leo Ou-Fan Lee

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OK, everybody! time to get busy posting.
Papi: please log in and post a Puerto Rican photo to the blog.
I have discovered two new books at amazon on the Camino.




A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago
Walking the Camino De Santiago (2nd edition)
Naturally they don't have them in Pittsburgh