About Face How I Stumbled Onto Japan's Social Revolution [Paperback]

Clayton Naff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996

An American journalist who has spent many years in Japan and who married into a Japanese family, Clayton Naff offers an insider's view of the transformation of this island nation. He traces the decline of authoritarian power structures, the increasing opportunities for women, the willingness of "salarymen" to quit lifetime jobs in search of more rewarding (and less exhausting) work, and other trends with far-reaching social, political, and economic implications. Extensively documented and engagingly written, About Face challenges outdated stereotypes with an informed survey of a society undergoing a quiet revolution.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this myth-breaking assessment of life in Japan today, Naff presents a disturbing but ultimately positive depiction. He maintains that the country is still hugely misunderstood and he is well situated to describe its realities, as an American working for a Japanese employer-the Tokyo-based Japan Times-and as the husband of a Japanese (his wife is an architect). Naff intersperses an insightful history of the country with an account of his own life as husband, father and son-in-law of a Japanese family. We learn that Japanese women are so dissatisfied with the constrictions of marriage that they are divorcing at a high rate, or refusing to marry at all; that the once admired educational and managerial systems are crumbling; that the country is unprepared for the problems of its large aging population. But Naff also suggests that the still fundamental feudal structure of Japanese society is giving way and will eventually move closer to real democracy.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

These two books have much in common; both are written by young Americans with firsthand living experience in Japan. Naff, a journalist living in Tokyo and married to a Japanese, clearly offers the fuller analysis. To achieve this, he intersperses sections detailing personal experiences with others offering a broader perspective on social and historical change. In this latter connection, Naff includes a discussion of the recent political "revolution" in Japan, as well as the country's changing economy and place in world affairs. Wardell's book, on the other hand, is wholly personal in approach. Now a Harvard student and journalist, Wardell spent a summer in the late 1980s living as an exchange student with a host family in Oita, a city on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. His work consists almost entirely of journal notes kept during that period. Wardell, who was 17 years old at the time, writes with a combination of youthful exuberance and a real knack for cultural understanding. The opportunity to live in a place far removed from modern, cosmopolitan Tokyo (albeit with a host family whose "modern" attitudes may not be entirely representative of all contemporary Japanese families) allowed him a unique and interesting perspective. Together, these complementary books provide valuable firsthand accounts of the modernization both authors see occurring in contemporary Japanese society. Highly recommended for general readers.
Scott Wright, Univ. of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha Amer Inc (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568361319
• ISBN-13: 978-1568361314
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,365,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A cross between history and reality, September 26, 2000

By 

Elizabeth Nault (Woonsocket, RI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: About Face How I Stumbled Onto Japan's Social Revolution (Paperback)

Naff takes an interesting look at Japanese history and combines it with his own personal entries from his experiences of living in Japan. Naff tries to combine the historical parts of the book with short stories of his own experiences with the historical aspect previously written about. Naff's readers enjoy looking at Japanese society through the eyes of an American man having fallen in love with a Japanese woman.