Japan Books

John Hancock
President
International Tangsoodo Alliance

Lars, a little polar bear, wants nothing more than to have a friend. He soon learns he has to be careful of what he wishes for! He gets kidnapped to be taken to a zoo and along the way, he meets a Walrus and Bea, a little brown bear. They escape to go home and Bea comes home with Lars.

It's a lovely little story with great detailed pictures. It's great to keep the kids' interest while reading ~~ and someday when my boys are older, it'll be a great book for them to learn how to read.

It's a cute addition for any library!

1-8-04

Tomoko Fuse is famous for its boxes. Boxes are also well liked by the masses but unfortunately most are unable to differentiate between one square box from another despite the differences in outward appearances in patterns or designs. Hence, if I need to quickly make simple boxes, this booklet is ideal and easy to carry with me.

Three kinds of boxes are taught with their variations, square boxes (with partitions), triangular boxes and hexagonal boxes. I missed the octagonal boxes which is a favourite of mine too. All boxes have lids included.

Tomoko has many designs but this booklet teaches the simpler ones but the effect is the same when compared with the more intricate ones.

I would strongly recommend this book even if you purchase every book on boxes churned out by Tomoko Fuse. I try to collect all of them and I still find this booklet worth it.

There is also the enjoyably opinionated Chapter 11, "Mud and Water, Purity and Power" where Morris allows his biases against other well known (sometimes questionable) martial artists of our time, to hang out in the wind. Among them Harunaka Hoshino (originally known as Chi Yuan) who created his own ninpo art from Japanese karate and kobudo during the ninja boom, Choi Hong-hi of Taekwon-Do whom he lambasts as having earned only shodan (1st black belt) before his return to Korea from Japan (now, now--nobody promoted Hatsumi sensei to 15th dan), and Genbukan Ninpo's Shoto Tanemora, once a student of Ninja Great Masaaki Hatsumi (and others) whom he dismisses as "...another cop..." with robotic movements (page 244). Some of the criticisms are fair, some are not...Morris doesn't bother to share his sources.

I don't accept Glenn Morris's interpretations and claims concerning the many things supernatural/psychic which pepper his writings--but if I only read things I agreed with, I wouldn't be living! I am, I admit, a cautious skeptic. I find Morris to be overly generous in the way he doles out his faith, often optimistic in accepting theories and studies which have not been scientifically counducted or checked, although even he draws the line at things like Alien abductions (see Chapter 13, pages 312-316). On the other hand, his insights are honest, and personal. In sharing his beliefs, he hides nothing, holds back nothing. Reading between the (esoteric) lines without any adaptation or interpretation, I find much of the advice he offers on this volume to be homespun, and often sensible.

Morris seems a cross between a scholar-warrior and a pseudo-intellectual hippy. This book is entertaining and fun to read. You don't have to share the man's opinions or beliefs to enjoy his adventures. If you enjoy martial arts autobiographies, or reading the personal thoughts of other people, this volume is just the thing.

And, to make matters even better, check out his reading list / bibliography for an even more intense mind screw! :)

It is amazing how some people look at Japan and see what is not there. For instance, one reviewer on this book said how most "Japanese players never had much real education, as high schools were more like minor leagues, so the player mostly read mangas (comic strips) on bus rides."

Mangas are much more than comic strips. They are books, written by adults largely for an adult audience. Business people with degrees read mangas.

In fact, the ignorance of Japanese culture reflects in many unfortunate incidences between Japanese citizens and American citizens. Mr. Cromartie's slugging of a pitcher more than illustates this point.

Baseball in Japan is brutal. They burn out their pitchers, for instance, rather than rotate them. In this book you'll see that Warren Cromartie started out his first season first as the hero that was going to save his team, then as the first half of the season wore on he was viewed by the press as a bum who wasn't worth the money they paid for him (Japanese players were, and maybe still are, paid very low salaries for the receipts they bring in for their owners). He then became a hero who batted very well on the second half of the season. Did Mr. Cromartie improve his batting? Perhaps. But more than likely by the second half the season the pitchers in Japan had worn out their arms, and could no longer throw as well.

Get this to learn Japanese culture, Japanese baseball, and one man's confusion and eventual acceptance of both.

Cromartie came back to the States and played his last season with the Royals as a pinch hitter/1B and finished the season with a .307 average as a part time player.

Get this book. It's worth it.

Cromartie came back to the States and played his last season with the Royals as a pinch hitter/1B and finished the season with a .307 average as a part time player.

Get this book. It's worth it.

I grew up watching Warren Cromartie play for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants during the late `80s. Cromartie was one of very few gaijin players who left a great impact, not only by the way he played the game, but also by his cocky attitude and behavior. For the Japanese media who love to stereotype American players as brashly self-arrogant, lazy, and powerful, Cromartie was such a perfect fit. Of course, they would not report on his side of story, this biography may be of a greater interest for those who viewed him as a gaijin those days. To me, the reader may miss the most interesting points if she just reads this book just as an account of "bizarre" experiences that an American went through in one of the most exotic places in the world.

With the presence of such colorful personalities as the manager Sadaharu Oh (whose career homerun record of 868 surpasses the American counterpart), his teammates, and old-fashioned traditionalists who would be labeled downright racists in many other civilized nations, the story never seems to bore the reader.

Unlike many other player biographies ghost written by mediocre sport writers, this is surprisingly an engaging book. Robert Whiting does a great job of incorporating his own views on cultural disparities between Japan and America into Cromartie's endeavor as a gaijin player. Many opinions expressed in the book overlap Whiting's other works on baseball, such as "You Gotta Have Wa" and "The Chrysanthemum and the Bad," but "Slugging It Out in Japan" is probably the most emotionally involved pieces of all.