The Xenophobe's Guide to the Japanese
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Many things in this little book are frighteningly so true.
Entertaining, well observed and fairly evaluated from the Western cultural perspective (so I think - I'm a Japanese living in UK since 2000).
It's not really a 'guide book' as such. Instead, it gives you a brilliant cultural comparison, their mentality and the physical environment (climate, geography etc) that affects their world view.
If you are planning to visit Japan for a few days, this book won't give you much useful information, but, if you are going to stay there for more than 1 month and hoping to mingle with local people, this book would give you some subtle but really important insights to the 'why' of their behaviours.
Best read with your own 'Xenophobe's...' to get a benchmark. (I read 'the English', 'the Italian', 'the American', 'the French' and of course, 'the Japanese'.)
Like any other value system, the Japanese culture was like an invisible & odourless gas that I was breathing without knowing it - till I read this book.
Entertaining, well observed and fairly evaluated from the Western cultural perspective (so I think - I'm a Japanese living in UK since 2000).
It's not really a 'guide book' as such. Instead, it gives you a brilliant cultural comparison, their mentality and the physical environment (climate, geography etc) that affects their world view.
If you are planning to visit Japan for a few days, this book won't give you much useful information, but, if you are going to stay there for more than 1 month and hoping to mingle with local people, this book would give you some subtle but really important insights to the 'why' of their behaviours.
Best read with your own 'Xenophobe's...' to get a benchmark. (I read 'the English', 'the Italian', 'the American', 'the French' and of course, 'the Japanese'.)
Like any other value system, the Japanese culture was like an invisible & odourless gas that I was breathing without knowing it - till I read this book.
1 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For the outrageous price one gets a very succint introduction into the habits of the Japanese, one that disregards the internal differences that are bound to exist in the country.
It is very good for a two hours fun read for someone who does not really plan to visit the country. The amount of information given is more easily gathered through a TV documentary though, and anyone wishing real help should address oneself elsewhere.
To keep matters very light but do it more usefully, about 40 more pages would have sufficed, together with a more rational partition of topics.
I would have appreciated a section about easy blunders to avoid when visiting such a different country and more attention to the intercourse between foreigners and natives, not excluding the more friendly or even intimate point of view.
It is very good for a two hours fun read for someone who does not really plan to visit the country. The amount of information given is more easily gathered through a TV documentary though, and anyone wishing real help should address oneself elsewhere.
To keep matters very light but do it more usefully, about 40 more pages would have sufficed, together with a more rational partition of topics.
I would have appreciated a section about easy blunders to avoid when visiting such a different country and more attention to the intercourse between foreigners and natives, not excluding the more friendly or even intimate point of view.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Get Culture Shock: Japan intstead.
22 April 2002
Format:Paperback
Thsi book was disappointing. I've read others in the Xenophobes series, and they were informative and humorous, though not particularly practical as travel guides. However, the Japan guide was neither. Having already read Culture Shock: Japan, I was very disappointed in this book. It has less information -- and less humor -- than Culture Shock. In fact, the Xenophobes guide had exactly 2 facts not mentioned in Culture Shock. Whether you are interested in travelling to Japan, or just looking for multicultural humor, I do not recommend this particular Xenophobes Guide.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
were we reading the same book?
14 July 2003
Format:Paperback
I've been living in japan for about two years now, and while you can learn more by going through several longer, more extensive books, for a single guide that offers an irreverant explanation of a very difficult country to understand, the Xenophobes Guide to the Japanese is solid. Like the reviewer above, I read the Culture Shock guide to japan, and while I found it interesting too and learned more about culture shock, altogether for a short, funny book I don't consider it as informative or comprehensive.
If you want to read more of these kinds of books on japan, check out Hokkaido Highway Blues, by Will Ferguson, an former english teacher that hitchiked across the country during his stay. People that have already lived out here a while always find it a lot funnier than people that havent yet, but for what its worth it gives a really accurate depiction of what its like to be a westerner living out here.
If you want to read more of these kinds of books on japan, check out Hokkaido Highway Blues, by Will Ferguson, an former english teacher that hitchiked across the country during his stay. People that have already lived out here a while always find it a lot funnier than people that havent yet, but for what its worth it gives a really accurate depiction of what its like to be a westerner living out here.
Xenophobe no more
19 May 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Fun read and useful tidbits of information. I read it before my recent trip. Some of the information was true while other seemed like traditional wisdom and not evident with the population I interacted with. Thanks,
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