This post was recovered from an old blog that I had while going to college at Oregon State University. I’ve only updated misspellings or dead links, but left any cringe worthy things or immature thoughts. I’ve decided to leave them as a snapshot of who I was and to see how far I’ve come. Any photos have been freshly edited and so are not the same as what was originally posted. Over the years I had several blogs, most lost to time, and I wanted to recover some lost memories and reflect on my life.

irst let me just say I liked the book and could almost give it 4 stars. The reasons I decided to only give it 3 was the way it was written and the length.

I feel Pico could have covered what he did in about 30-60 pages less if not more. The story mainly focuses on the way Japanese society is with it’s reservations and freeness. Pico quotes old poems and he obviously wants to believe Japan embodies these poems, but he finds that Japan is more complex than he thought. The main relationship(a somewhat romantic one) is with Sachiko a 30 year-old mother of two, but she is more of a medium to express how Japan is. It’s somewhat hard to understand what I’m saying unless you’ve read the book. Some past readers have accused Pico of thinking he knows the Japanese, while this is somewhat true I believe he more presents his opinions for you to analyze.

And for the way the book is written it’s a bit jumbled. I think this book is better described as pages of his thoughts and experiences throughout his time in Japan, it’s not a travel book. I think there are only a select amount of people who would feel satisfied with this book, or at least appreciate it.

If you can find it at a library pick it up and give it a quick read and if you like it go ahead and buy it.