Cynthia

Imagine your mother moving abroad, April 26 2002

Imagine your mother, a nice, middle-class lady from suburbia who probably hasn't travelled much out of the US, suddenly ups and follows Dad's job halfway across the world. Confronted with something totally alien, she writes letters home or in her journal about these foreign experiences she's having. Basically, that's this book. Sometimes she's totally wrong about Japan and the Japanese; sometimes her middle class western prejudices and assumptions show through; sometimes she reveals insight she probably doesn't know she's revealing, but her voice in all this is totally honest. Any expat living in Japan will identify with a lot of her experiences (haven't we all been dressed up in kimono for… Read more

Thought provoking piece, April 26 2002

Tanizaki's 1933 essay is an excellent introduction to the Japanese aesthetic. True, it IS the personal reflection on one man who, were he anyone else, would probably be dismissed as a curmudgeonly crackpot. However, 'western bashing' is not the issue here -- a point that he makes repeatedly is that had Japan remained closed to the influences and technology of the west, those things that have developed in Japan (and, arguably, later developed Japan) would have had a very different complexion. Although he does not speak for all Japanese, the points he makes -- tastes in architecture, decoration, etc -- appear over and over in ordinary Japanese people's homes and lives, even today, 70 years… Read more

An unexpected delight, Nov 24 2001

I am not an architect, nor am I Japanese, but I have lived in Japan and love Japanese-style rooms. I picked this book up merely because I was interested in the topic, and thought I'd get just a dry description and maybe some floor plans. Was I wrong! This book is a delight, not merely for the content-- which is a thorough introduction to the pieces of the Japanese house and the 'why' behind them-- but also for the social comment the author makes about various facets of the lives of the people who live in these houses. Ueda's opinion comes through clearly, but that's what makes this book such a good read (his solution to the unslightly-futons-on-the-balcony problem had us in stitches, and… Read more