The Teas That Bind [Kindle Edition]

On my epic journey home to the frozen north today I read this book. It's not my usual sort of book but I've been following Joanne on Twitter for a while and decided to purchase it to support another self-published writer. I'm very glad I did. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be as moving as it was.

It was a difficult book to read - most of the contents were written at the time of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and are collated here (I suspect) almost exactly as they were back then, with minimal reflection and without hindsight. As a result, what you get is a very real and palpable sense of frustration, sadness and helplessness. There's a weird surreal feeling to it, like the anecdote about the little old man out sweeping the streets with his dustpan and brush in the middle of the night. As a very visual reader I found my eyes prickling with tears at the thought of all those school children facing empty seats and desks every day as a constant reminder of the friends that they lost. I could see it in my minds eye and it ached. I also admit to being frustrated that without wifi (I was on a plane) I couldn't follow the links provided for further information and I wanted to know more, to see the stories that inspired the posts.

I also find the writer's decision to up sticks and move to Japan, and then to stay there with everything that was going on, incredibly inspiring. I've thought about emigrating, I've even talked about it, but to actually do it? I'm not sure I'm that brave. It takes great strength of principle to do something so extreme and stick to it, yet throughout the book runs a current of humility. The author is aware that she is not learning the language, that she's feeling misplaced pride for visiting tourist destinations off the beaten track.

By far and away what surprised me the most was how thought provoking the book was. Usually when I finish a book I just pick up and start the next one but on this occasion I switched my kindle off and spent the remainder of the flight deep in thought. Many years ago I read a book called State of Fear by Michael Crichton and it profoundly affected my view of the media. Although I try to keep abreast of the news, I now take everything I see or read with a pinch of salt and am occasionally amused by the sheer transparency of the media's attempts to manipulate the public. It never occurred to me to think that reports of the devastation in Japan were wildly hysterical. While the northern areas were almost flattened and the death toll was in the tens of thousands, over here we were being whipped into a state of frenzy over the issues at the Fukushima nuclear plant. There was widespread panic as people tried to contact their loved ones over there and tried to persuade them to come home, not really understanding that actually they were safe and well in Tokyo. It should have occurred to me. I've been a media cynic for 6 or 7 years. It made me stop and think what other events have been twisted and tweaked to make better news stories, over and above the catastrophe in Japan and, in the case of State of Fear, the issue of global warming. I found myself contemplating what is wrong with the human psyche that we allow ourselves to be governed and manipulated by an addiction to bad news. I don't suppose I'll ever have an answer.

But that, I suppose, is part of the point of the book and also the blog (Ten Minutes Hate). There's an honesty to social media that is unassailable by the media and it's something we need to learn about. Instead of being the sheep that follow the news, perhaps we should try a little more social contact. We should speak to the people that are there, the people that are living the news. I no longer want to be governed by the hysterical circus that fills our screens. Is a little honesty too much to ask?

Our Man was reluctant to read and review this book for three reasons: Could this be any good? (it's just a collection of blog posts, dammit); how can he be honest about it, as Jo is a friend? Jo did much to make Quakebook the success it was, how can anyone trust anything Our Man says about this book?

Then he read it.

It is a collection of blog posts, but edited ones with some more writing too. But it's one of those books where the whole is more than the sum of its constituent parts. There is a three-point narrative here: The British girl looking to escape the dull certainties of life in England, who finds more than she could have anticipated in a strange land, and her acceptance and discovery of a role to play in this increasingly familiar land.

Our Man has met Jo only once in person, but frequently online. Still, he would count her as a friend. He doesn't know if that clouds his judgement, no doubt it does, but while reading of the travails of our girl in 2011 Japan, something in the background kept niggling at Our Man. A voice he'd heard before. Was it an echo of George Orwell, Jo's hero? Not exactly, though the subject matter and opinions were complementary.

Anyway, how can you trust anything Our Man says about this book? He and Quakebook - the project that took over his life for several months after the earthquake - are mentioned frequently. Well, the answer is it's up to you how much trust you put into the opinions of a silhouette with a bogus name and a penchant for third person. Personally, Our Man wouldn't trust a single word. He's like that.

But he does now know who Jo's voice is like. It was a voice Our Man encountered on his mother's bookshelves years ago. Another young author in a strange land, finding her feet and discovering her voice. Have you read In Pursuit of the English: A Documentary by Doris Lessing?

Whether The Teas That Bind is as good, Our Man can't say yet, but he can say this: it's a fascinating document of one woman's experiences as an observer of a nation in crisis. Whether it will become a valuable insight into the mind of a great novelist at the outset of her writing career is entirely up to Jo to decide.

An insightful look into the year following one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history. At a time when the foreign media was knowingly exaggerating the Fukushima incident, food shortages and the "mass exodus" of Tokyo's foreign residents Ms. Greenway presents an altogether different view of one foreign woman's experience and the Japanese peoples ability to truly keep calm and carry on. She reminds us that those in Tokyo "had it lucky" and that while the foreign media focussed on Fukushima there were thousands of families in Tohoku who lost everything in a matter of minutes but still found the strength to smile and press on with their lives. The format of twitter posts, emails from friends and family and Ms. Greenway's own writings on the matter give the reader a real feel for the changes that came over everyone as they began to understand what had and was still happening in the days, weeks and months following the Great East Japan Earthquake. A recommended read for anyone who was in Japan during the earthquake and is curious to hear about another persons experiences as well as those who are interested in reading an unbiased account of the events and how one woman fell in love with Japan all over again.