Customer Reviews

36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan

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...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....

I am currently living in a small seaside city off the coast of the Japan Sea and have been living in Japan for approximately the same amount of time that Davidson lived here. I read Davidson's book when I first arrived here, when I was just as enamored with Japan as she was. Everything here was new, exciting and exotic. But now, a number of months later, I can't relate to this optimistic, sugar-coated view of Japan. This book is perfect for the tourist of Japan. But for anyone wishing to stay longer than three months here, this book presents a wholly unrealistic view of life abroad. Life in Japan is just that: life. Some days I want to stay here forever; other days I would leave in an instant, if I could. I would like to relate to the Davidson in the book who, despite her inability to learn the language and her rather short stay here, was able to create bonding relationships and form a complete, expert-like opinion of Japan. Yet I found this view of Japan (and all of the 36 other views) totally unrealistic and helplessly romantic.

This is an excellent book. It should be required reading for anyone interested in living in Japan and for all foreigners currently living there. Ms. Davidson portrays the Japanese people with insight and "dead-on" accuracy. You'll come away with a better understanding of Japan and Japanese culture. It was both humorous and though provoking. This is the best book I've ever read about what it's like to be a "gaijin" in Japan. I highly recommend this book.

This is a wonderful story that gives insight into Japanese culture. Cathy N. Davidson opens her heart and soul to share her experience of living in Japan in a University town. She leaves behind the stereotypes and misconceptions about who the Japanese people are and what the Japanese are about. The experience of being a gaijin, a foreigner, in Japan is a fascinating experience. She uses her own personal experiences and friendships as the backdrop to develop an understanding of the differences that exist culturally and how she copes with the misunderstandings and indulgences that come together to create interpersonal relationships. The interesting aspect in this situation is that each side has a different perspective and the rules of engagement are not clear. She handles the differences with understanding and an inquisitiveness that is open and honest in seeking out the similarities that are below the surface and the culturally ingrained realities that drive the Japanese. The overworked and driven businessmen, the stressful educational system, childhood indulgence phenomenon, along with a difficult language and a written language that takes years to comprehend are all a part of the tale.
She also brings some deep personal insights into her own life into the story that make this book so much more than a travelogue!!
This book was a treasure for me to read after just returning from another trip to Tokyo and having experienced many similar situation and discussions.
Ms. Davidson's love and appreciation of a culture and country that is so different from her own shines through out her writing. Her delight in new experiences, different ideas and her open, honest heart make this book a discerning and perceptive narrative.

I read this book before I went to Japan and was fascinated by all the nuances--yet unfamiliar--of living as a foreigner in Japan. I looked forward to some of these experiences, but I also wondered how what Davidson wrote would be reflected in my own Japanese life to come. I re-read the book while I was there and was amazed as I saw mirror images of my own students and my own experiences in her words. I have read it again since my return to the US to remind me how much I miss Japan and how badly I want to return.

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!)

This book can be split into two halves, although I doubt that was the intention of the author. The first several chapters are about the author's experiences in Japan: the awkwardness of adjusting to a new culture, language barriers, different social philosophies, etc. I found this portion of the book to be fantastic. It was very funny in places, and always enlightening. Although everyone's experiences are different, it basically lets you know that living abroad is an adventure, and not a smoothly paved road.

While the second half still deals with a lot of these themes, it becomes a lot more philosophical and introspective. This is where the "Japan-ness" of the book doesn't really matter. It is about searching out one's place in life and feeling caught in between cultures (it could be anywhere, it just happens to be Japan and the United States in this case.) It is fascinating to see how other cultures deal with grief, loss, etc. The stories about Japanese funerals are so different from what one experiences in the west. This book provides a good, balanced view of living abroad and of living in Japan more specifically. She does a good job exploring and probing concepts that many others surely struggle with, but don't articulate as well.

I breezed right through the book, I read it in two or three sittings and it never became tedious. The focus shifts in the book, but that's often what happens when one has major events in their life.

Davidson Sensei's book is worthwhile just for the vignettes and anecdotes about a gaijin living in Japan in the 1980's. The book is even better as a discourse and commentary on the relative merits of egalitarian and elitist cultures.

For many gaijin, Japan is a middleclass paradise... safe, clean, polite, orderly, full of giri (reciprocity); an egalitarian meritocracy. The ultimate middle class experience. At first, Davidson falls in love with Japan but by her fourth visit, she sees it as a sad, depressing place. Her discomfort reaches a peak during a stay at her former host University's Practice House, an ersatz model Western home designed to be a laboratory for teaching young Japanese women Western manners, practices and protocols.

The Western, and particularly the American elite's disdain, if not outright contempt for what's left of the middle class is well known. Academic elites, in particular, loath their middle class students (while craving the middle class tuition dollars that pay their salaries). Davidson tells us about her family's failed efforts to participate in the middle class Chicagoland suburbia of the 1950's. She hates all of the mid-20th century middle class symbolism in her Japanese host's Western Practice House.

Davidson moves on to a job at an elite East Coast University, builds a fabulous Japanese house on a beautiful lakeside setting in the country, and leads a live that most Americans can only imagine. Ultimately, the author chooses to participate in the upmarket options that are only available to her in Elitist America instead of the living in middle class Japan. She makes the decision after a blinding flash of insight gained while vacationing in Paris. The point of the book, the moral of the story, fits our times perfectly: Elitism is better than Egalitarianism, (if you are a member of the Elite). What is funny and charming about all this is that Davidson really doesn't seem to understand the implications of her decision until a houseguest from Japan spells it out for her. And in the final chapter the irony that a second Japanese houseguest also has to spell out for her. After her lengthy journey and a long story well told, it turns out that Davidson's fabulous Japanese house is an ersatz Practice House.

No giri.

No Mount Fuji.

I've read quite a few travelogue sort of books, and expected this to be sort of like Road to Sata, Angry White Pyjamas, or anything by Bill Bryson: modern, quirky, a touch cynical, and more than a bit uncomfortable. What I found instead was a book that was touching in its humanity and emotional depth.

Ms. Davidson tells us of her experiences living in Japan over a handful of year-long trips, mostly teaching at a university for women. She and her husband travel around, interact with, and are shaped by Japan during their stays. I have read before about how strange Japanese society appears to a westerner, about how certain things are wonderful (the baths, the relative safety of the streets) but others are terrifying and depressing (the lack of true inclusion, the countless overhead power lines). Cathy Davidson's book, however, makes these observations almost tangible in their personal impact.

Too, she explains how she has come to feel caught between Japan and North America, realizing after some time that she cannot ever feel truly at home in either country. This passage, along with the section in which she talks about a death in the family, makes this book not just great 'travel' writing, but a sensitive memoir of the intersection between two great cultures and a woman who seems to know herself very well.

I fell in love with this book the moment I touched it. I've never read a book that has stirred such strong emotions and ethical questions simultaneously.

I am now living in Japan with my husband, on a military base. And this book has been invaluable to me. Admitedly, the Japanese culture has advanced quite a bit, so it is now even more westernized than it is described in Davidson's book. However, most of what Davidson said is still very true. I feel I understand the Japanese culture better now.
YOU MUST GET THIS BOOK!!!