Japanese American Books

You know, there's always some level of hype about the "latest translation" and all, but this wonderful translation of "The Tosa Diary" by William Porter, originally published in 1912, demonstrates that we are not always so much more clever than those who came before. Porter is carefully faithful to the sense of the original while capturing its tone and mood in English with great talent. And his method of rendering the waka poems scattered throughout the story is inventive and interesting--though sometimes understandably a bit strained; he has taken the original and fashioned it into something that is true both to waka poetics and to the English poetics of his time (before T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and all that jazz), with a rhyming couplet at the end corresponding to the way the last two lines of a waka break off from the first three thereby completing the poem with a flourish. Compare his rendering of a poem by Ariwara Narihira with Helen McCullough's more conservatively literal (though not inferior) rendering, and you'll get a sense of Porter's distinctiveness here:

Porter: "If the cherry trees/Nevermore burst forth in bloom,/'Twould be better far;/For the saddest time of all/Is the spring, when petals fall."

McCullough: "If this were but a world/To which cherry blossoms/Were quite foreign,/Then perhaps in spring/Our hearts would know peace."

As for the story itself, it is a fairly interesting early attempt at prose narrative, though it is pretty uneventful and kind of drags in spots (one almost wishes the much-feared pirates had actually caught up with Tsurayuki's boat). The thing I found most significant about the tale, though, was the manner in which Ki no Tsurayuki here fleshes out in narrative form the principle he elucidates in the first paragraph of his preface to the "Kokinshu" waka anthology, i.e. poetry being the expression of people's emotional reactions to their experiences and sensual perceptions. Here we see that principle in action all along this otherwise rather tedious trip back to the Capital. Certainly, such moments were Tsurayuki's primary focus and interest, not "Pirates of the Inland Sea" per se.

This book also has the original Japanese text on one side with the English translation on the other, so it is really handy for students of Japanese literature.

One of the core frameworks of modern Japan has been its library system. Acting as an adjunct to an impressive and intensive education system.

To non-Japanese who do not speak the language, it can be difficult to understand and appreciate the extensive and indeed pervasive nature of libraries throughout their society. Welch does us the favour of illuminating this. He gives a comprehensive description of the different types of libraries, at various educational levels and regions. He also puts this in the context of the traditions of pre-Meiji Japan.

A very coherent presentation.

The author was a technical intelligence officer with the US forces in China. His task was to visit the sites of enemy aircrashes and record all the useful information he could about manufacture and materials. Along with the story of his work he covers his encounters with the Chinese and the sights along the way.
You should also like Sampan Sailor another book reviewed here by myself.

Among those celebrated Japanese auto makers in the US, the author picked Mazuda, because it is the only unionized Japanese transplant with reasons. This book starts out with nothing but a prize on Mazuda's management and production systems, filled with the Mazuda's official lines and a stereo type commonly associated with Toyota. It reads like one of those PR books for the Japanese automotive company, which made me wonder whether I should continue reading further. There are reasons why Mazuda lags way behind Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Suzuki, and it all sounded too good for Mazuda.
Then the reality check starts. The author starts describing in detail how Mazuda's system proven in Japan failed to work in Michigan the way it intended. The real value of this book lies in this reality check, which occupies about the two thirds of this book. Simply put, despite the cooperation of local UAW, the Mazuda's production system could not be transferred to Michigan as such, because it relies so heavily on the Japanese way of life where you find virtually no single mom and the wives - who tend to be full time home makers - take on the entire family responsibility so that their husbands can devote their entire time and career, if necessary and expected, for the success of their employers.
But the author ran out of time. In two years that the author took to cover the developments, Mazuda Flat Rock Plant remained in difficulties and kept making compromises with no improvement in sight. The book ends abruptly when all parties involved are still complaining at each other.
It could well be that the author could not afford to continue covering the further developments before the plant started to show positive results. This book fails to cover how Mazuda Flat Rock Plant eventually overcame their difficulties. This is where the lessons could have been learned.
I wish the same author would cover how Ford has taken over Mazuda's entire management and preformed to bail it out. Ford's experience with Mazuda exhibits a sharp contrast to Renault's undertaking with Nissan, which has come back strongly under the French leadership.

By necessity this book has to take a broad brush through the World's Philosophies. For example in Western Philosophy, Karl Marx gets one paragraph. This book should not be thought of a history or catalog of philosophers, but rather as a sampling from different cultures. A different author writes each of the 7 chapters, but most contain a glossary, further reading, and thought provoking study questions. I thought the chapter on American Indian Philosophy by J. Baird Callicot and Thomas Overholt was enlightening with selections from Ojibwa and Lakota. The thought that an ancient American crisis after the extinction of the megafauna, precipitating the American Indian environmental ethic was a new idea to me.

At times the distinction between philosophy and religion was a little blurred. There was little discussion of uniquely Islamic or Jewish philosophy (despite a paragraph on Maimonides). The focus of each chapter depended upon the author, so the Japanese Philosophy focused on Zen, while perhaps the other Buddhist philosophies are short changed.

I used this book of readings as a good accompaniment to Dr. Higgins teaching company audiotape of World Philosophy.

The book was very well written and you could actually put yourself in some of the incidents that happened through her life. It is very hard to belief that this discrimination happened in our country less that 75 years ago. Great read.

I was very satisfied with the level of customer service that I received from Amazon.com. As a student, I am always on the lookout for ways to save money and Amazon.com has become one of my new favorite websites.

my 14 year old daughter, who is a reading fanatic, had to read this book for english over the summer. she said the book was well written but was not entertaining.

I could not believe there were one-star reviews until I read them and saw they were written by kids. Obviously part of their 8th grade class assignment was to write a review of the book for Amazon.com. This book is really not for junior-high level kids, as they will find it boring. And unless they are familiar with Asian-American culture or know somebody who is Asian-American, it will be difficult for them to relate to this book at all. One kid reviewer said the book might have been better if there was violence! Those kids would have been better off watching the Made-For-TV movie that was based on the book.

It is of great interest to those wanting to learn about this shameful part of American history, and for those wanting to learn about Asian American history. As a mother of a half-Asian son, this will definitely be a book he needs to read. I applaud Jean Wakasuki-Houston for writing this book, and to me, it rates up there as a must-read with "The Diary of Anne Frank." Both are important testimonies to the horrors and racism of WWII, and hopefully future generations can learn from them.

Farewell to Manzanar is the autobiography of Jeanne Wakatsuki, who was seven years old in 1942, when the U.S. government forced Japanese-American families from their homes, and relocated them to internment camps. She tells the story of life at the Manzanar camp, as well as her family's difficulty in resuming a normal life after the camp closed, including her personal struggle to fit in with white kids at school.

Just prior to the internment, Jeanne's father was arrested in Los Angeles County and taken to North Dakota. He was a fisherman, and they charged him with delivering oil to Japanese submarines. During interrogation, he explained that the 50-gallon drums on his boat contained bait, not oil. His interrogator asked, "Who do you want to win this war?" He answered, "When your mother and your father are having a fight, do you want them to kill each other? Or do you want them to stop fighting?"

One amusing part of the story is about how the camp residents entertained themselves. "He didn't sing Don't Fence Me In out of protest... It just happened to be a hit song."

Woven into the story are historically significant facts. Ironically, while being held captive as a threat to the country, second-generation Japanese-American men were drafted into the Army. Many accepted the call, and others even volunteered prior to being drafted. However, some fought in court, and a judge in San Francisco ruled in their favor. In a separate case, the Supreme Court ruled in December of 1944 that the government cannot detain loyal citizens against their will. Within the next year, the camps were closed.

This part of American history has been swept under the rug. 110,000 Japanese-Americans were relocated to 10 inland camps. Wakatsuki documents her experience in the form of a relatable, human story.

This book should be used to teach an American reader the Japanese perspective before and during WWII. Bradley delves deep into historical Japanese views of America (many critics often confuse these views with the views of the author). Bradley cites specific American events the Japanese used and taught to justify their American hate, their militiary dedication, and their own manifest destiny. If you like to read history rarely taught in your everyday classroom, don't miss this one.

A book that goes into great detail about the Japanese-Korean_Chinese relationship before and during the war as well as the American_Japanese Relationship is the book 'Flyboys: A True Story of Courage ' . Yes the description says its about American Pilots, and yes it is. BUT the first 1/3 to half of the book intimately describes the Japanese-Korean_Chinese relationship and how the Japanese went from *stone age to massive war machine in only a few decades, It also explains the Japanese mentality back then and how they became like that and WHY. This is not just a book about some American Pilots. It is a (sometimes gruesome)detailed look into the origins of the pacific war and more important the Why's ...
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A book that goes into great detail about the Japanese-Korean_Chinese relationship before and during the war as well as the American_Japanese Relationship is the book 'Flyboys: A True Story of Courage ' . Yes the description says its about American Pilots, and yes it is. BUT the first 1/3 to half of the book intimately describes the Japanese-Korean_Chinese relationship and how the Japanese went from *stone age to massive war machine in only a few decades, It also explains the Japanese mentality back then and how they became like that and WHY. This is not just a book about some American Pilots. It is a (sometimes gruesome)detailed look into the origins of the pacific war and more important the Why's ...
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This book really surprised me. It was the first one I read by this author (and I will now certainly read Flags of Our Fathers), and I thought it would be a super-patriotic book about how brave the American airmen were and how awful the Japanese were to them. What really surprised me is that Bradley gives such a balanced view of the two sides in the war, and, while not favoring the Japanese in any way, helped me as a reader to understand the war from their perspective. It also pointed out how horrific and dehumanizing war is to soldiers on both sides who are fighting each other, and how they come to cease to view the enemy as human beings. I certainly came away from the book heartbroken over what happened to the American flyboys and how much their families suffered their loss. I also came away from the book convinced that one should be very wary when a government demonizes people on the other side of a conflict, and how important it is never to forget that all people are human beings with the same needs for love, family, security.

The author begins the book trashing America for its Indian policies in the 19th Century, but ignores how Indians brutalized each other when their Asian ancestors migrated to the Americas, and later. The issue is tangential to Japanese atrocities to American prisoners of war. Its an excuse to kick America.

Leave this bilge at the college where you teach.

This book had promise of telling a story that needed to be told of Japanese atrocities during WW2. However, the author was not focused in his efforts electing instead to tell the story of airpower in the military and trying to justif the actions of the Japanese by telling of what the Japanese held as US atrocities. In fact he himself indicates thet he might have crossed the line when he stopped just short of calling one naval aviator he interviewed a babykiller as a result of a mission he had flown. Interspersed within these pages was an effort to tell in very graphic detail the story of the death of several US Naval Aviators. Overall a poor experience and would cause me to stop and think before I read another one of his books

I bought this book because of the great reviews, because I was looking for something new, and because of the emphasis from some reviews here on Amazon on the World War II sections.

But overall, this book is first and foremost about life in american suburbia - the very powerful World War II chapters occupy at best 20-25% of the book, and don't kick in until about half way through. So much of the remainder of the book reverted to why people have a hard time making deep friendships or building satisfactory family relationships in typical, affluent american neighborhoods. Some parts here were very touching, particularly the one about the Hickey's, but others seemed forced, particularly the Liv-Renny relationship. The sequence of events towards the end strains credulity, and I found the "happy" ending dissatisfying.'

I dont usually identify with books in set in america suburbia. In this case, I came out somewhat satisfied. At the very least, I finished the book (in two days), which is already saying something given that I was unable to do so when I tried books by Richard Ford and Tim Obrien which also had great reviews. But it will take another book to make me a fan of this genre.

Ah, the unreliable narrator. Lee has an excellent command of the English language, as always present in his novels. This element is always an interesting juxtaposition in the lives of his characters--as it is often assumed that immigrants would be clumsy and ignorant when speaking in a non-native language (which is also a reference to one of his other works, Native-Speaker).

Doc, who is called Doc by all the towns residents, is not a doctor at all, one of many ironic details of his life. He is excellent proof that inaction and not making active choices are in fact action and active choices. A man with a weak heart, literally and metaphorically, Doc Hata misrepsents himself his whole life, or lets others believe things about him that aren't quite true, nor are they false.

A work of slippery truths, examples of how memory is distorted and frail, liminal spaces, and unexpected twists, this novel provides an excellent literary and thought-provoking journey.

A Gesture Life. The very title of this novel intrigued me. What exactly would that look/feel/sound like? Then I pulled the book from the shelf and was no less satisfied but all the more compelled by its cover---at once dreamy, theatrical, beautiful in some classic way...

Now that I have finished this book I can say "Yes, I certainly know what Chang-rae Lee means by A Gesture Life. This work is phenomenal in ways that lull the reader into a sense of "All is right with the world", only to have that world up-ended by layers-deep revelations...some coming in cumulative fashion, others coming at you so fast you've no time to 'duck' [or even consider the possibility]. Then again, there are those illuminations that you believe you understand, only to find they stretch and grow larger, and at times, to the point of inconceiveablity.

Lee's writing is on par with the finest I've ever had the experience to read. It is breathtaking in its poetic beauty, haunting in its relentlessness, transcendental in its offering of this amazing life of Doc Hata, its main character. I am left struck with so many new awarenesses, and simple relief for the realizations brought to light within the pages of this book. I often imagined HOW Lee kept himself composed to write many parts within it. Lee's ability to empathize and lend grace to unspeakable circumstances is immeasurable.

Remarkable, astounding, honest work. I am grateful to know this author's work and will now seek out everything else he has to share with us.

Bravo, Bravo, Bravo.

child's play, that's the impression one gets upon reading chang-rae lee's gesture life, child's play in the sense that the author is at home in english as no other writer currently wielding this thing we've assigned our globe's lingua franca. maybe i exaggerate a little, but there is no denying the talent, the effortless grace with which chang-rae lee can evoke an image, intercalate a dialogue with a telling descriptive detail, and sustain a narrative without resorting to gimmicks or fancy word play. mastery of diction, syntax, narrative structure and style, they're all there for the aspiring novelist to envy and admire and the casual reader to blissfully ignore as the story and the plot is as equally elegant, profound and compelling. buy the book or steal it if you must, just get the darn thing and read. you'll be doing yourself a favor.

Franklin Hata (or "Doc Hata," as he is known to the residents of Bedley Run) is a friendly and polite, if reserved and serene, septuagenarian who is considered by his neighbors as a stalwart member of the community. Of Korean birth, he was adopted and raised by a family in Japan and entered the Japanese Army during Second World War before emigrating to the United States. In spite of his efforts to immerse himself first in his Japanese homeland and then in American suburbia, he never becomes fully part of either culture.

The conflicted protaganist of "A Gesture Life" is also a reluctant narrator of his own life. Having spent seven decades building a facade of decorum, he hides failures and misfortunes from the reader, revealing them glacially as he accounts for the loneliness in his old age, as well as for his ultimate inability to fill roles others expect of him--and he expects of himself.

Hata's story revolves around the presence of five women, and he sheds his secretiveness as he introduces and portrays each of them. Foremost is his adopted Korean daughter, Sunny, who as a youth gradually rebelled against his propriety and his remoteness and who scorns the dreams he has envisioned for her future. Repulsed and even embarrassed by his artificiality, she tells him spitefully, "You make a whole life out of gestures and politeness."

Hata also becomes close (or as close as his politesse will allow) to three women in the community: a neighbor with whom he has a brief affair, a realtor who wants to put his immaculately kept home on the market, and the mother of a terminally ill son who, along with her husband, buys Hata's medical supplies shop when he retires.

But a central conceit of the novel is a lesser-known aspect of the Pacific war. We gradually realize that Hata's relationship with his daughter is an unsuccessful attempt at redemption for his involvement, as a medical officer in the Japanese army, with the Korean "comfort women" who were enticed to volunteer for service and then forced to be prostitutes--and particularly for one of the women, Kkutaeh, who suffers horrendously on his watch.

Lee's novel is notable for its dichotomy: Hata's quiet mien and the seemingly calm first-person narrative conflict sharply with the tragedies and the strife he witnesses and reluctantly recalls. "A Gesture Life" is a study of a man so concerned with always doing the right thing that he inevitably does the wrong one. It is only when he confronts his past that he truly finds redemption.

Whine, whine, whine. Get a life woman, and stop detailing every boring thing your father ever did to you.

The main watered down version of this book to save people the trouble of reading it: My past was traumatic, and I hate Japan. GO UNITED STATES!
In other words? Stupid, biased, and well... BAD

This is just like her book "Polite Lies", Ms. Mori just wants to display Japan in the lowest level doesn't she? All right, your past was traumatic. Thank you. Now either get OVER it, or just LEAVE JAPAN ALONE! I'm Japanese, just like this author but lived in the United States for seven years (from when I was 3-10) and have been living in Japan since. Now, as I am living in Japan NOW and not what? 25895039 million years ago (that's the impression I get from her book) I can tell you that the information is WRONG. Her writing style is well, beautiful and imaginitive, but her information? CATCH UP BEFORE WRITING A BOOK AND ACTING PERSUASIVE! If she's trying to lower a foreigner's view of Japan, she's probably done a fine job of it. So as a warning to all foreigners readning this book: IT'S A BUNCH OF LIES!

She also has a load of stuff on the Japanese school system that is so wrong. It's a perfectly fine system okay? Quit bashing on it! It seems she didn't even go through it because she spent half the book boohooing about how bad it was and how EXCELLENT her AMERICAN influenced private school was.

This is a book I relish so much, I limit myself to a chapter a day just to stretch out the enjoyment and savor each sentence. I am an American who has lived in Japan for seven years, and it is so interesting to see the view through her eyes -- she really does capture aspects of Japanese culture that are below the surface, not normally visible, but nonetheless palpable. This girl definitely has a way with words!

I don't like giving a synopsis or summary of the book. Thats what reading it is for. What I do like to discuss in reviews is what kind of effect the book had on me. The mood and atmosphere of the book was on the depressing side, but that's okay. Because life is like that sometimes. Like Kyoko Mori, if you don't confront a problem correctly, it will fester in your soul until you come to terms with it. The book was realistic. I like putting down a book and knowing it isn't "too good to be true" because it is true, and I don't end up in a fantasy land.

The book does deal with alot Kyoko's negative experiences and views of the Japanese culture. I love Japanese culture, and I think her views are totally valid. I can accept the good and bad. Why be closed minded? Kyoko even comes to appreciate and understand some of the seemingly "rude" behaviors of her Japanese friends, and can enlighten us outsiders to what might seem to be odd behavior.

Good book. It was nice for Kyoko to let go of some of her personal demons and share this very personal and painful story. Maybe we can all be as brave as her and launch head on into what we've been dreading and fearing.

In this intensely personal memoir Kyoko Mori visits her home town of Kobe, Japan, in an attempt to come to terms with her mother's suicide and her estrangement from her father.

She came to America at 20, seven years after her mother's suicide, and even then knew she would never return for more than a visit. Her memoir begins with an account of the immediate aftermath of her mother's death - the shrouded atmosphere of shock and grief, her maternal grandparents gentle consideration, her father's jarring insensitivity.

It then jumps to 1990, as Mori, now an American, readies for departure from Green Bay, Wisconsin, where she teaches creative writing at the university. She has always been ambivalent about the country of her birth. When people ask her if she 'goes back,' she winces at their terminology and replies, ' 'I'd like to visit sometime, but there are other places I'd rather travel to if I had the money.' '

The trip is a sabbatical, justified as research for her stories and poems. She will spend four weeks sightseeing. Letters to her family are only sent from the airport: 'I could never get on the plane this morning if I had to see my family first thing upon arrival.' The people she has arranged to meet on arrival are, instead, Americans living in Japan and it is an American family she stays with.

Mori skims over her four weeks traveling. She remains an outsider, treated as a foreigner. The Japanese she meets don't even expect her to speak Japanese. The reader pictures her in her American running shoes and sports clothes, a contrast to the Japanese women in dresses and lipstick, aloof in her tourist personna. But Mori begins to think she would feel alien anyway, even if she had not become so determinedly American. Kobe, where she grew up, is a modern, westernized city with little of Japanese tradition about it. The private school she went to, run by westerners, encouraged her non-conformist creativity. Even Japanese art does not move her.

Upon her return to Kobe she agonizes over calling her father. She longs to see her other relatives - the maternal grandmother, aunts and cousins her father had forbidden contact with at the age of 13. Her paternal aunt and cousin who gave her so much sympathy and love in the difficult years after her father remarried. But she is Japanese enough to know that she must call her father first otherwise the others will feel awkward.

The narrative is haunted by the guilt and grief she still feels over her mother's suicide, the bitterness she carries for her father. Until we meet him, it's easy to feel impatient with Mori as well as sympathetic. Sure, he was a cold, even viscious parent - depriving her of family, threatening to take her out of the school she loved, beating her for speaking her mind, full of psychological cruelties - but she also provoked him with her rash impetuosity. Perhaps Mori should be an adult about it and reconcile. How can he hurt her now?

Then we meet her father and his callous behavior is as breathtaking as it is sad. The stepmother really is like something out of Grimm's fairytales. In their presence Mori becomes like a child again but the years have taught her restraint. Reuniting with her other relatives, she finds it frustrating that Japanese language and custom makes emotional expression difficult. But in the end she also finds a delicacy, even a liberation, in this. Breathing room.

Mori's language is simple, unadorned, affectingly graceful. Her narrative engages the emotions as it struggles with big questions of coming of age and coming to terms with anguish that will never be resolved. In the end she remains an alien in her birthplace and the reader understands a little more about what that means.

The war between the classes. Hmmmm. What an intersting book. The raging war between a bunch of students in a High school enviorment. These student judge you by class. These classes are like how popular you are. You have lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper class. And these kids are fighting about the way they are being treated because of their class. And one question stays in mind. Will they resolve this problem. Well if you read this book you will find out.

This book was very interesting. It started out slow, but as I advanced through the story it became better and better. I reccommend that you read this book. It's about Amy: from a lower class Japanese family, and her boyfriend Adam: who finds her different and "exotic" according to Adam. They struggle together as they move through the four most devastating weeks of their lives. The "color game" has given them the opportunity to see what it's like living on the low end. Amy plans on rebeling against the "color game". Read this book and find out if she succeeds.

signed Ryan LMS

I read this book years ago and still remember the plot clearly. It made quite an impression on me, and the social experiment part of the book was fascinating. The love story is a little overworked and cliched, but on the whole I enjoyed the book when I was a preteen and early teen. I'd like to see this rewritten to a college student level, that would be great.

The author is trying to say that nothing good comes from prejudice against another person. It teaches how prejudices can effect the people who are being hurt by it. I would definitely recommend this book. I think that it is full of life lessons that everyone should be aware of. This book shows the hardships of different ethnicities and different social classes. It shows what it would be like to have someone you love be a different ethnicity. It also shows what it would be like to have someone you love in a different social class. I thought that it was a really good book. I think the people who would enjoy this book the most would be teens around the ages of 14 to about 17.

The novel "The War Between the Classes" written 1985 by Gloria D. Miklowitz deals with class differences in American society. It is about a Japanese girl, Amy Sumoto, and her relationship to Adam, a member of the upper class. Moreover the "color game" is introduced at school by the teacher Ray Otero reflecting the American class system. The message of the novel is to reconsider your behaviour towards the other social classes and to overcome prejudices towards them.
The novel has about 118 pages and consists of 14 chapters, so it can be read within a few hours. The language is easy and can be understood by non-native speakers though the author uses some slang. The target group are mainly young people between the age of 14 and 16.
My personal opinion about the book is rather negative. Though the idea to write a book about the "color game" is very interesting, the love story between Amy and Adam is not. It is entirely predictable by the reader and full of clichés. But regarding the target group this is perhaps what appeals most to the reader. Maybe Piri Thomas or John Howard Griffin would have given a better insight into American society and racism, but if you want a love story, read "The War Between the Classes".