Good Reads

[katsu]

A few months ago, I began subscribing to the Hawaii Herald, a bi-monthly English-language newspaper which focuses on the AJA community in Hawaii. While I was born in Hawaii (before it was even a state!), I have lived on the mainland for a number of decades now, and this newspaper has been a wonderful source of information, interest and entertainment for not only me, but a number of other similarly transplanted relatives of mine with whom I share each edition.

Another Hawaii-themed read I would like to recommend is the book Stories of Aloha by Jocelyn Fujii. This book, which was published only a few months ago, consists of 130 profiles of kama'aina which originally appeared over the course of 23 years in the inflight magazine of the now defunct Aloha Airlines. One neat thing contained in this book is that there is an update on each of the people profiled. Some of the people are famous (to da locals), but many are not. I enjoyed perusing through this book a lot, and it's gonna end up being a Christmas present for several of my relatives.

[katsu]

Things Japanese by Nicholas Bornoff and Michael Freeman is a very impressive 140-page book examining over 60 different items which are integral to Japanese culture. The items fall into one of four categories--"House and Garden"; "Possessions and Clothing"; "Eating, Drinking and Entertainment"; and "Custom and Religion"-- and are accompanied by beautiful color photographs and very informative texts. Many of the items are common everyday objects--hashi, tatami, and futon, for example--but less well-known items are also included such as netsuke (exquisitely carved toggles) and inro (medicine purses). Even those of you familiar with most or all of the objects profiled would probably learn a lot about the crafting, history, and cultural significance of all of them, including ones you use or see every day.

Giants of Japan: The Lives of Japan's Greatest Men and Women, a 1999 book written by Mark Weston is a very good primer on Japanese history as examined through the lives of around 40 influential figures spanning some 15 centuries. This 300-plus page book slots these "giants" into one of five categories: industry, traditional culture, history, modern writers, and directors/athletes. All the usual suspects are included--the "Big Three" (Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, Ieyasu), Sony founder Morita Akio, tea master Sen no Rikyu, and film director Kurosawa Akira are well known examples--but also included are a number who are not as famous, like Izumo no Okuni (actress/dancer who created Kabuki) or Ueshiba Morihei (founder of Aikido). This is a really well written book, interesting, informative, and entertaining to read.

[katsu]

Published in 2003, The Dorama Encylopedia: A Guide to Japanese TV Drama since 1953, written by Jonathan Clements and Motoko Tamamuro, is I'm guessing the only English-language book specifically focusing on dorama. I thumb through this book a lot; my copy has become real boro boro because of extensive use.
This 400+-page book is a pretty good introduction to the dorama world. As I really got into watching dorama, it provided me with many choices. And while one can obtain more up-to-date and more widespread info on dorama on the internet, this book is still a viable resource for obtaining more substantial info about many pre-2000 dorama series. For example, because of the fairly extensive background info and critiques found in this book, I sought out series like Odoru Daisousasen, Kita no Kuni Kara, and Aoi Tokugawa Sandai--all three of which turned out to be among the best dorama I have viewed. Maybe I would have discovered these and many other series from the 80's and 90's eventually, but reading the detailed accounts of them in this book piqued my interest and forced me to go looking for them.
The book is certainly not complete--for example, only a few Asadora are mentioned, and while some Taiga series receive extensive coverage (like the aforementioned Aoi), others are not even listed. The same goes for jidai-geki series--some glaring omissions there. However, I continue to glean info from it in my on-going quest to get interesting dorama; the problem is there's so many titles I'd like to watch but are not available or are proving difficult to obtain.

[katsu]

Ever since I was old enough to read, I've enjoyed reading comic strips in whatever daily newspaper my family and, later I subscribed to. Unfortunately in the last decade, there has been a paucity of really good comic strips, at least in my paper. No more Peanuts, The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, or Herman to brighten up my day. So in the last month I purchased recently published collections of two favorite strips: Growing Old with B.C.: A 50 Year Celebration, and The Best of the Wizard of Id: 40 Years of Mirth, Merriment and Mayhem. The late Johnny Hart created B.C. first; then collaborated with the late Brant Parker on Id. (Both Parker and Hart passed away in 2007) Both strips were terrific--humorous, sarcastic, witty, critical, and, at times even profound. B.C. in particular belongs in the pantheon of all-time great comic strips imo.

[katsu]

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan is a page-turning account written by Jake Adelstein about his newspaper career as a crime beat reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun and his post-newspaper career investigating human trafficking and the yakuza. The language is oftentimes raw, the stories frequently horrific but from start to finish the book is both informative and engrossing. Much of it reads like a crime novel, full of memorable characters, complicated plot twists, and black humor.
Adelstein, among other accomplishments, was the one who broke the story about the yakuza oyabun who, with the help of the FBI, was able to get a liver transplant at UCLA. As a result, the yakuza threatened him and those near and dear to him. (It's also suggested they raped, tortured, mutilated, and killed one of his sources who was helping him dig for information about the yakuza's role in human trafficking)
This book is definitely not for the squeamish, but if you want to know about how newspapers operate in Japan; the complex and eye-opening relationships between the police and reporters, reporters and yakuza, and yakuza and police; the sex trade and drug trade in Japan; and the yakuza's pervasive influence in vice, politics, entertainment, and business, then I highly recommend you go out and get a copy.

Here's a recent interview with Adelstein about his book and his life:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 103x1.html

[katsu]

Getting Wet: Adventures in the Japanese Bath, published in 2006 is a pretty interesting book about the Japanese obsession with bathing. Written by Eric Talmadge, the Tokyo news editor for the Associated Press, the book focuses on his own experiences dealing with all aspects of the Japanese bathing culture as well as providing historical and scientific background information on this topic. Talmadge's excursions take him throughout Japan as he experiences all manner of onsen, ryokan, sento, bathing theme parks, even the infamous soapland. He bathes in waters which run the gamut from highly sulfuric to radioactive to having electrical currents zapping through them.

You know, reading this book brought back long-ago memories of when I was a little kid living in Hawaii. At least a couple of weekends a month my brother and I, along with some cousins would tomaru at my grandparents' house in Palolo. My grandfather had built a large wooden ofuro (probably made sometime in the 40's) and communal bathing was something us kids did, usually joined by an aunt, sometimes by an uncle, and once in awhile by our grandfather. Happy times.

[katsu]

Las Vegas wasn't always the primo gambling destination for people from Hawaii. For many years Reno had that distinction. But as the informative and informal book California Hotel and Casino: Hawaii's Home Away From Home (co-written by Dennis Ogawa and John Blink and published in 2008 by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii) points out that all changed when Sam Boyd decided in 1976 to look to Hawaii when it became apparent his year-old California Hotel and Casino couldn't attract enough Californians to make it in the highly competitive Vegas market. Boyd had ties to Hawaii--he and his young family lived there for a number of years prior to the war where he worked for an issei named Hisakichi Hisanaga. Because he knew, liked, and respected da locals, he bet they would come to his little hotel in a crappy section of downtown Vegas if he gave them what they wanted. And the rest, they say, is history . . . .

Much of this 130-page book consists of narratives by the people who were largely responsible for making the Cal the place for kama'aina to stay, eat, and above all, gamble. Much of the Cal's success was due to the indefatigable work of co-author John Blink, whom Sam Boyd picked to establish and nuture the Hawaii-Vegas pipeline. Other principals interviewed include local travel agents Herbert Tanaka and Jackie Kitagawa, TV personality Hari Kojima, and Herb Yamagata, who established his Aloha Specialties store at the Cal--at first to sell the countless packs of beef jerky Hawaii people would lug home as omiyage, then later to feed them home-style meals from saimin to loco moco.

Overall, it's an affectionate, nostalgic account of a unique relationship between the people of a state in the middle of the Pacific and a small nondescript hotel casino in the middle of a desert.

[katsu]

Just finished reading Sumo: A Thinking Fan's Guide to Japan's National Sport by David Benjamin, which is actually an updated version of his original The Joy of Sumo which was published almost 20 years ago. Benjamin is a journalist who worked in Japan for a number of years; at one point he became the only foreigner to cover sumo on a regular basis for a Japanese-language publication.
This is an entertaining, humorous, quirky look at sumo by someone who obviously knows a lot about and loves the sport. He merrily takes shots at a lot of the things he believes is wrong with sumo--the JSA, NHK broadcasts, sumo nerds, sumo experts, gyoji, oyakata, and fat, really stupid rikishi (which, according to Benjamin are almost all of the rikishi who have ever been in sumo) come under heavy sarcastic barrage--and assigns nicknames and labels to almost everything he writes about. (Examples: Mitoizumi--remember him?--is referred to as "The Asshole"; Asashoryu is "Hinganai"; Akebono is "The Great Pumpkin") References abound in the book as well. For instance, on the chapter on tachiai, he uses Nobel Prize-winning physicist Neils Bohr, the western movie Shane, boxer James Braddock, some one-armed high school wrestler, Hall of Fame football receivers Jerry Rice and Don Hutson, and Hall of Fame baseball catcher Yogi Berra, to explain the finer points of the initial charge.
This book is certainly different in tone from most of the other English-language sumo books I own; it turned out to be an entertaining, informative read. Speaking of sumo books, when I finished reading this book, I placed it on a shelf that held my other sumo books and noticed that of the twelve or so sumo books I own, a third of them were written by women. I found that to be an odd curiosity.

[Saburo]

Speaking of sumo books, when I finished reading this book, I placed it on a shelf that held my other sumo books and noticed that of the twelve or so sumo books I own, a third of them were written by women.

First one that comes to mind is Lora Sharnoff's GRAND SUMO, a well-done book that merits an update.

Also recommended (purchased in Japan) SUMO: A FAN'S GUIDE by the peerless Mark Schilling, who also did an excellent resource on Japanese pop culture. I actually friended him on Facebook and was gratified to learn that I reminded him of his work on sumo: "I see it on Amazon, ranked number four million something..."

[katsu]

Speaking of sumo books, when I finished reading this book, I placed it on a shelf that held my other sumo books and noticed that of the twelve or so sumo books I own, a third of them were written by women.

First one that comes to mind is Lora Sharnoff's GRAND SUMO, a well-done book that merits an update.

I have that book. Lynn Matsuoka did the artwork (does she still live in Hawaii?)

Also recommended (purchased in Japan) SUMO: A FAN'S GUIDE by the peerless Mark Schilling, who also did an excellent resource on Japanese pop culture. I actually friended him on Facebook and was gratified to learn that I reminded him of his work on sumo: "I see it on Amazon, ranked number four million something..."

I have five books by Mark Schilling, including the sumo book you mentioned plus Jesse! Sumo Superstar that he co-wrote with Andy Adams about Takamiyama. You're right about his Japanese pop culture book; while somewhat dated (1997), it's a really informative, wide-ranging reference of things Japanese. His film books are also valuable resources. I've never visited any of those social networking sites like Facebook, but I do visit his film review site (http://japanesemovies.homestead.com/).