Here is a beautifully written first-person account of what it took to strike out and succeed as an independent woman in prewar Japan - and reap the rewards in the postwar era. The chronicle begins as the memoirs of Endo Nami, born some eighty years ago in a farm village in Japan's north country, and ends as the success story of Yamazaki Ikue, chief executive of a large chain of hairdressing and beauty salons. Opening on a childhood filled with dreams, ancestor cults, and the gods of nature, the story follows the heroine's attempts to break the mold of a rigidly paternalistic society and her eventual escape to Tokyo. Enduring a lengthy, frustrating, and often humiliating apprenticeship, then a series of near-failures in her business, she eventually finds herself on the road to material success. Both as a girl and as a woman, Yamazaki Ikue relied on geomancy, astrology, and the revelations of spirit mediums to interpret the past, present, and future. She relates her life with wonderment and lyricism, combining a devotion to magical folk traditions with the hardheadedness of a modern-day businesswoman.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Caillet, a French journalist and anthropologist, here presents a superb tale of a rural Japanese girl, born in 1918, who as an adult became the owner of a chain of Tokyo hair salons. The book is also an engrossing cultural study of prewar-to-present-day Japan. As a teenager, Yamazaki Ikue persuaded her parents to enroll her in a Tokyo hairdressers' school; pre-war coiffeurs were elaborate, requiring ancient skills and reflecting traditional values that Ikue loved. She knew that the gods had created Japan first in the universe and that the Emperor was divine. After four years of study, she managed a salon for the school before being allowed to branch out on her own. She married her teacher's son for practical reasons, was a dutiful daughter-in-law, a loyal wife and mother while working hard to achieve great success in business. For spiritual guidance and practical advice, she relied on seers, monks, astrologers and magicians, in whose wisdom she deeply believed. She came to accept the war defeat and the ensuing American imprint on life. For its wealth of personal detail, this is an exemplary contribution to understanding the Japan that was and is.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this first-person account, told to French journalist Caillet and orginally published as part of a sociological series, Ikue Yamazaki, born in 1918, describes her early life in a rural village in northern Japan, her apprenticeship to a Tokyo hairdresser, and her arranged marriage with her employers' son. As an entrepreneur in postwar Japan, she revives and expands the family business, creating an international chain of beauty shops; starts professional associations; and attempts to found a new religion. Throughout the narrative, Yamazaki digresses to interpret circumstances according to Shinto and Buddhist beliefs or to discuss such topics as geomancy, business practices, and women's roles. Though Caillet provides excellent explanatory references, illustrations, and photographs, the reader unfamiliar with Japanese society and family life may find these digressions difficult to follow. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.
Lucille Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Lucille Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Japan is moderzing,
By A Customer
This review is from: The House of Yamazaki: The Life of a Daughter of Japan (Hardcover)
I think this book is interesting, because it shows how a rustic girl could become a buisness girl in tokyo .She wanted absolutly get around the obstacles (tradition, way-life of japan girl, her father . . .), and fallowing Japan evolution in the modernity, she improve herself ;But if she lives now in a certainly modernity (occidentalisation), this is may be thanks to the Gods, which are indissociables of the japaneese life .
3.0 out of 5 stars
Japan is moderzing,
By A Customer
This review is from: The House of Yamazaki: The Life of a Daughter of Japan (Hardcover)
I think this book is interesting, because it shows how a rustic girl could become a buisness girl in tokyo .She wanted absolutly get around the obstacles (tradition, way-life of japan girl, her father . . .), and fallowing Japan evolution in the modernity, she improve herself ;But if she lives now in a certainly modernity (occidentalisation), this is may be thanks to the Gods, which are indissociables of the japaneese life .
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