For Fukui's Sake

For Fukui's Sake

Author: Sam Baldwin

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2012-11-19

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9781467924146

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'Witty and highly entertaining; a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary Japanese people' - Helen Arnold, 1001 Escapes 'Jocular and candid; essential reading for backpackers and Japanophiles' - Ginny Light, former online editor, The Times 'Really evokes that excitement of 'discovering' Japan for the first time. I thoroughly enjoyed it'- Jan Dodd, Rough Guide To Japan 'A fascinating journey and call to action' - Mark Hodson, writer, Sunday Times Far from the high-tech, high-rise of the super-cities, there lies another Japan. A Japan where snakes slither down school corridors, where bears prowl dark forests and where Westerners are still regarded as curious creatures. Welcome to the world of the inaka - the Japanese countryside. Unhappily employed in the UK, Sam Baldwin decides to make a big change. Saying sayonara to laboratory life, he takes a job as an English teacher on the JET Programme in a small, rural Japanese town that no one - the Japanese included - has ever heard of. Arriving in Fukui, where there's 'little reason to linger' according to the guidebook, at first he wonders why he left England. But as he slowly settles in to his unfamiliar new home, Sam befriends a colourful cast of locals and begins to discover the secrets of this little known region. Helped by headmasters, housewives and Himalayan mountain climbers, he immerses himself in a Japan still clutching its pastoral past and uncovers a landscape of lonely lakes, rice fields and lush mountain forests. Joining a master drummer's taiko class, skiing over paddies and learning how to sharpen samurai swords, along the way Sam encounters farmers, fishermen and foreigners behaving badly. Exploring Japan's culture and cuisine, as well as its wild places and wildlife, For Fukui's Sake is an adventurous, humorous and sometimes poignant insight into the frustrations and fascinations that face an outsider living in small town, backcountry Japan. For more info see: ForFukuisSake.com


Learning to Bow

Learning to Bow

Author: Bruce Feiler

Publisher: Zondervan

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 0061863599

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Learning to Bow has been heralded as one of the funniest, liveliest, and most insightful books ever written about the clash of cultures between America and Japan. With warmth and candor, Bruce Feiler recounts the year he spent as a teacher in a small rural town. Beginning with a ritual outdoor bath and culminating in an all-night trek to the top of Mt. Fuji, Feiler teaches his students about American culture, while they teach him everything from how to properly address an envelope to how to date a Japanese girl.


Truancy City

Truancy City

Author: Isamu Fukui

Publisher: Tor Teen

Published: 2012-11-13

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1429986743

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As a new threat arises from outside the walls of the City, the warring Truants and Educators must join forces or be destroyed. The fate of the City is determined at last in this long-awaited conclusion to the Truancy trilogy. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.


The Book of Sake

The Book of Sake

Author: Philip Harper

Publisher: Kodansha International

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 9784770029980

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Once found only in sushi bars and Japanese restaurants, Sake now lines the shelves of gourmet food shops, supermarkets and restaurants of all persuasions, listed alongside the customary wine selections. Written by a Sake brewmaster, this book shows how to select a good sake and how to match an evening's selection with food. Once found only in sushi bars and Japanese restaurants, Sake now lines the shelves of gourmet food shops, supermarkets and restaurants of all persuasions, listed alongside the customary wine selections. With demand on the rise, the timing of The Book'


Saké

Saké

Author: Hiroshi Kondō

Publisher: Kodansha

Published: 1984

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13:

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The Only Gaijin in the Village

The Only Gaijin in the Village

Author: Iain Maloney

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd

Published: 2020-03-05

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1788852591

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In 2016 Scottish writer Iain Maloney and his Japanese wife Minori moved to a village in rural Japan. This is the story of his attempt to fit in, be accepted and fulfil his duties as a member of the community, despite being the only foreigner in the village. Even after more than a decade living in Japan and learning the language, life in the countryside was a culture shock. Due to increasing numbers of young people moving to the cities in search of work, there are fewer rural residents under the retirement age – and they have two things in abundance: time and curiosity. Iain's attempts at amateur farming, basic gardening and DIY are conducted under the watchful eye of his neighbours and wife. But curtain twitching is the least of his problems. The threat of potential missile strikes and earthquakes is nothing compared to the venomous snakes, terrifying centipedes and bees the size of small birds that stalk Iain's garden. Told with self-deprecating humour, this memoir gives a fascinating insight into a side of Japan rarely seen and affirms the positive benefits of immigration for the individual and the community. It's not always easy being the only gaijin in the village.


Yakuza Moon

Yakuza Moon

Author: Shoko Tendo

Publisher: Kodansha USA

Published: 2010-07-15

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 4770050062

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Yakuza Moon is the shocking, yet intensely moving memoir of 37-yearold Shoko Tendo, who grew up the daughter of a yakuza boss. Tendo lived her life in luxury until the age of six, when her father was sent to prison, and her family fell into terrible debt. Bullied by classmates who called her "the yakuza girl," and terrorized at home by a father who became a drunken, violent monster after his release from prison, Tendo rebelled. A regular visitor to nightclubs at the age of 12, she soon became a drug addict and a member of a girl gang. By the age of 15 she found herself sentenced to eight months in a juvenile detention center. Adulthood brought big bucks and glamour when Tendo started working as a bar hostess during Japan’s booming bubble economy of the nineteen- eighties. But among her many rich and loyal patrons there were also abusive clients, one of whom beat her so badly that her face was left permanently scarred. When her mother died, Tendo plunged into such a deep depression that she tried to commit suicide twice. Tendo takes us through the bad times with warmth and candor, and gives a moving and inspiring account of how she overcame a lifetime of discrimination and hardship. Getting tattooed, from the base of her neck to the tips of her toes, with a design centered on a geisha with a dagger in her mouth, was an act that empowered her to start making changes in her life. She quit her job as a hostess. On her last day at the bar she looked up at the full moon, a sight she never forgot. The moon became a symbol of her struggle to become whole, and the title of the book she wrote as an epitaph for herself and her family.