Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa (Hardcover)

~ Karin Muller (Author)
Key Phrases: Kobo Daishi, Information Center, Shikoku Island (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Having previously traversed the Ho Chi Minh trail and the Inca path, Muller retains an engaging freshness as she goes about "prying open the doors to traditional Japan." She observes some well-known traditional communities (geishas, samurai), some less familiar (taiko drummers, pachinko parlors) and some more recent (the criminal yakuza, the gay community). A keen listener, Muller lets an ensemble of voices speak, among them a swordmaker and a crab fisherman. She's also a participatory learner, taking on tasks like harvesting rice. The diverse activities and excursions to far-flung places make this a fine travel memoir, but it's the backbone of Muller's voyage that gives her book resonance and richness. The deterioration of her relationship with her host family is a looming presence; even as it collapses, Muller acquires an intimate sense of customary values from the urbane Genji Tanaka and his conservative wife, Yukiko. Muller's search for the traditional, culminating in her participation in a 900-mile trek to 88 sacred Buddhist temples, also shapes the narrative. Muller went to Japan to find wa: a quality of dedication, inner strength and spiritual peace. Her memoir isn't an account of achieving those goals, but it is an engrossing, rewarding record of her travel toward them.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

At age 34, American documentary filmmaker, writer, and judo maven Muller spent a year in Japan searching for the meaning of life. Her narrative account is both raucous and revelatory, full of piquant observations of Japanese culture, from sumo wrestlers and samurai warriors to a 1,400-year-old ascetic mountain cult known for walking on hot coals. Muller's renderings of her Japanese host family, who lived in the Tokyo suburb of Fugisawa, are wonderfully edgy: tall, salt-and-pepper-haired judo master Genji, whose stern manner is offset by a mellifluous laugh; frosty-hearted Yukiko, the Japanese equivalent of a Stepford wife; and single 28-year-old daughter Junko, who, much to her family's chagrin, shows no signs of settling down. The author, who headed to Japan in pursuit of wa (the Japanese word for harmony), returned with a reverence for geishas, an appetite for sauteed crickets, and an appreciation for the contradictions that suffuse life in Japan. A companion PBS documentary, Japanland, will provide another avenue of sharp commentary from Muller, whose previous books and films have documented her adventures in South America and Vietnam. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; 1st ed edition (September 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594862230
• ISBN-13: 978-1594862236
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #762,322 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "Wa" and the Breathless Pilgrim, August 22, 2006

By	Chris Starling (Kobe, Japan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As implied by the subtitle, A Year In Search of Wa, Karin Muller's book shapes up as a sort of contemporary Pilgrim's Progress, in which the writer undertakes a journey she hopes to be of benefit to her soul. For many years, Ms Muller says, she has been on a quest for "the meaning of life," and her focus has at last settled upon the "calm and inner strength" of her Japanese judo instructors in America. However, they have told her that to truly master judo, she needs to understand the philosophy behind it, and so to understand Japan. As she adds herself, this will mean "becoming Japanese." On a first level, then, her book sets out to recount the progress of a self that is thoroughly imbued with Western adventurousness and individualism, as it aspires to acquire the quietude and harmony (wa) that are implicit and omnipresent in traditional Japan. This is a promising subject. The paradox of a self striving to overcome itself guarantees dramatic interest, and insofar as most Westerners picking up this book are likely to be similarly curious about Japan and "wa" and possibly eager to attain some wa themselves, there is a sure complicity of writer and reader. Secondarily, as implied by the main title, Japanland, Muller's book functions as a conventional travelogue, relating impressions and experiences of assorted aspects of Japan in the chatty manner one might adopt in writing to a friend. Here again, the Western reader will generally follow Muller with complicit humor.

Initially, the book seems likely to live up to its potential. Muller gains our respect as she sets out with humble determination to "become Japanese," in particular conforming as well as she can to the customs of her home stay family, the Tanakas. She writes honestly, and is informative and entertaining as she describes her interactions with the family and along the way explains aspects of Japan (sumo, sword-making, the yakuza, Confucianism etc.) incidental to her story. Given all this, it is not hard to understand the positive reviews Japanland has had in America.

However, from the point of view of a reader living in Japan, it is hard not to have reservations. There are, to begin with, troubling errors and inaccuracies. Muller consistently refers to her home-stay town as "Fugisawa" where it is obvious that Fujisawa (in Kanagawa Prefecture) is meant. I cannot work out whether this is an awkward attempt to disguise Fujisawa, or whether it is sloppy editing on her or someone else's part. Certain statements are also erroneous. To say that there is a stigma on women who are not married by 30 may have been true ten years ago but it is wrong today. It is also untrue that one third of Japanese marriages are arranged. The most charitable interpretation here is that the manuscript became outdated while awaiting publication. Elsewhere, kojinshugi (individualism) is represented as kijinshugi. All this from someone who, having spent twelve months in Japan, is now, according to the blurb, an "expert lecturer on Japan for the National Geographic Society."

More seriously, as the story progresses, and particularly as the relationship between Muller and the Tanakas deteriorates, both writer and book become less appealing. We soon realize (and no doubt Muller does too) that our heroine is incapable of the sort of assimilation ("becoming Japanese") she first conjectured in the abstract. That this is so is not in itself a criticism of the author, although it does hamper the fulfillment of her task. However, Muller's avowed preference for "freedom" leads her at times into a do-what-I-want tactlessness. Home-stay mother Yukiko at one point criticizes the author for her lack of manners. Probably very few foreign visitors (and a minority of Japanese) would meet Yukiko's exacting standards, And yet there is some truth in Yukiko's remark. Be it manners or tact, something lacks, and one winces here or cringes there as a result. At the yabusame training ground, she reports taking up a position "a foot below the target, trying to get some footage of the archer shooting directly into the camera lens." At another point, she alienates a guide at the Yamabushi training by implying that she knows better than he does. Consistent with this is the way she treats the Tanakas. When her relationship with them is breaking down, she begins to live entirely independently, but continues to avail herself of their home. At this point, they no longer invite her to talk or eat with them (a sure sign that their hospitality is at an end) and yet instead of taking the hint, she stays on and seems surprised when her much later offer to leave is immediately accepted. Consider especially that home-stay father Genji graciously accepted Muller into his home with a view to her learning more of judo. There is no indication given that the Tanakas accepted to have their home life and dealings with others laid out for the world to read. To publish this book, and profit from it, grossly defies the awareness of on (indebtedness) that Muller professes to have on pp69-75.

Despite all this, in her acknowledgements, she writes that she would like to meet her home-stay family again "and perhaps be friends." Tactful?

And what of the search for wa? In the final pages, the writer takes part in the famous Shikoku pilgrimage. Aesthetically, it is an appropriate ending, the culmination of the quest, but has Muller made any real progress? I suspect not. As fastidious as she makes out Yukiko to be, she herself is ultimately just as fastidious in her obdurate individualism. Despite the genuine aspiration that was her first impetus, in the end Japan appears to have served for her as just another pretext for stimulus, activity, a head-on "tackling" of destiny. One has less an impression of unity and harmony than of restlessness and multiplicity. There is little to be learned here about living in harmony with one's self or others.

As a travelogue, the book has some value, but it is limited. The primary theme being the quest of wa, inevitably there is heavy emphasis on traditional spiritual elements of Japan (judo, sumo, Yabusame, the Yamabushi, taiko drums, kabuki, geisha, the Zentsuji naked festival, the Shikoku pilgrimage). She writes well enough on these matters, but it is hard to maintain this bias toward the traditional without appearing to privilege a "mysterious Japan," as criticized by some reviewers on this site, and indeed by some Japanese of my acquaintance. The unfortunate title does nothing to alter such an impression: Disneyland, Legoland, Japanland. A place away from reality that one comes to for wonder and amusement.

All in all, this is an honest work, generally well written, that will entertain as long as one identifies resolutely with Muller herself, her individualism and her picaresque adventures. Look beyond this, place her in a Japanese perspective, and her ever-bustling, at times gauche, accumulation of experience comes to seem trivial, a little whirlwind in nothing, too breathless to touch the placid wisdom she vowed to seek. In consequence, even if laudable as the faithful record of a personal failure, Japanland comes across as naïve and over-reaching in its project to enlighten. By the final page, we know that Muller was too stubbornly full of self to be up to the task. Given her short acquaintance with the country, her newfound status as a Japan "expert" seems likewise overstated.

Finally, for reasons I stated earlier, as an act, publishing this book would appear to be all the opposite of wa.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No "wa", August 10, 2007

By	M. Feldman (Bowdoin, Maine, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa (Paperback)

Karin Muller describes her year in Japan as a search for "wa" or inner harmony. This is a literary construct--an entirely unconvincing one-- designed to tie together a series of travel stories that are really defined by restlessness, not harmony, as Muller and her camera bounce from one unusual festival or cultural practice to another. Then there is the motif of the Rules and Regulations that Muller keeps bumping into, which usually lead to her being Rejected. This happens with the host mother, Yukiko, most notably, and with each encounter I began to feel a little more sympathy for Yukiko, esepcially when Muller attempted to improve the family garden with a vegetable patch. (Yukiko is referred to as Muller's "nemesis" on the paperback cover blurb--a good way to sell the book, I guess.)

Muller may be a good filmmaker (I have not seen the PBS series), but she's not a particularly good writer. She tells her stories in the present tense, evidently to give a sense of action and immediacy, which is wearying after a while and leads to way too many sentences that begin "I + verb". Check out page 205, for example, and just count them, if you doubt me. Muller also has a weakness for the unfortunate simile; when she described being cold after a naked swim in the sea as "I feel my body stiffening like a piece of roadkill after the sun goes down" I almost gave up on the book altogether. Occasionally Muller must supply historical background to explain what has drawen her to a particular place, but each time it has the awkward feel of a sidebar.

Finally, there is her tendency to make sweeping generalizations ("courtesy is bred into their DNA," and so on) that makes you realize that Muller doesn't really like Japan or the Japanese very much.There are some interesting stories in this book, but I would not recommend it as a guide to Japan. I should say in all fairness that I read this book right after finishing "Oracle Bones", Peter Hessler's wonderful book about China. Hessler, in addition to his scholarship and years of living in China, has what I call a quiet eye. He's wonderfully observant and skillfully brings just enough of himself into the narrative to convey his personality and interests. Muller's "Japanland" is too frantic and way too self-absorbed to convey much that's truly interesting or new about Japan.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Japan Filtered Through Eyes of Insensitive Person, October 30, 2008

By	cstrebel - See all my reviews

This review is from: Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa (Paperback)

Forgot about looking for wa, Karin Muller should try to learn about the basics of politeness in any society. Ms. Muller goes to Japan and lives with a family without paying them any room or board or helping with chores around the house. She goes off and plays with the husband and then comes back to the Japanese home and lets the wife do all the work while she chats happily with the husband. When the wife is resentful, Ms. Muller is shocked and then goes on in the book to criticize and slander the family that has been kind enough to take her in.
Another thought that occurs while reading the book is how cheap is the National Geographic Society or are they too being slandered by Ms. Muller? Supposedly, she has been sent to Japan to make a documentary about her experiences for the National Geographic Society, but she is constantly seeking free everything from anyone she includes in her videos. Does the National Geographic Society send out people to do work for them and not pay them anything? If they do, shame on them for they are then exploiting those who work in their name.
As others have mentioned in their reviews, the author is not concerned with finding wa, but with making a documentary and then a book as a spin off. Ms. Muller's work is unsettling but not for the reasons she thought it would be.