In this elegiac account that is part travelogue, part memoir, British poet and writer Malcolm Ritchie recounts his and his wife's unforgettable three-year-sojourn in Sora, a remote farming and fishing village on the Japan Sea coast. Ritchie weaves together anecdotes, conversations, lyrical verses, and unforgettable character studies to vividly and hauntingly evoke the rhythms of life in a traditional rural Japanese community. Underlying this portrait is the author's growing awareness that the aged inhabitants of Sora and the surrounding villages are the custodians of a fragile, barely surviving, way of life, one that is still informed by the cadences of the natural world, under the tutelage of its ancient gods. The book is a paean to a once noble culture all but effaced by Western industrial/technological materialism-the "cultural carcinogens" of the West-which Asian countries such as Japan have all too willingly embraced. Always profound and moving, Village Japan pays lyrical homage to a side of Japan rarely experienced or glimpsed by foreigners today.
Village Japan: Everyday Life in a Rural Japanese Community
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Book Description
--This text refers to the
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
In the nooks and crannies of fast-paced contemporary Japan, an older way of life barely survives in remote rural communities. In the mid-1990s, British author Ritchie and his Japanese wife sojourned for more than two years in Sora, a fishing and farming village on the Japan Sea coast peopled mostly by the elderly. Through his own rambles around the countryside and conversations with his neighbors, whose foibles and idiosyncrasies he sketches sympathetically, Ritchie steeped himself in local customs, festivals, lore, and religious practices centered on Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Although his book is filled with keen observation and fascinating detail, it is not an anthropologist's village studyAit is a Buddhist meditation, an elegy. In tones of gentle reproof, Ritchie laments the imminent loss of a holistic way of life that connected community and cosmos. This beautiful book belongs in public and academic libraries.ASteven I. Levine, Univ. of Montana, Missoula
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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This review is from: Village Japan: Everyday Life in a Rural Japanese Community (Kindle Edition)
Easy reading and informative. I enjoyed the descriptions of life in a remote part of Japan. I allowed myself to consider the personal and community activities of village residents and their attitude to an Outsider.
When I think of Japan I recall the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka and Narita - 127 million people. I recall the discipline demanded of me and many others who trained in Martial Arts This book took me into the intimate enclosure of the main characters. Routine, behaviour, likes and dislikes, conduct and values are quite different from most other cultures. The elder statesman is quite a character.
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