Review: Japan Took the J.A.P. Out of Me
Japan Took the J.A.P. Out of Me, subtitled The True Story of a Domesticated Princess, is a tongue-in-cheek memoir of a J.A.P. (that is, Jewish American Princess–Don’t yell at me for the title, I’m not the publisher) that traded a sub-Paris-Hilton materialistic lifestyle for Japan. While I suspect the author would have been perfectly happy in a metropolitan area with lots of shopping like Tokyo, fate lands her in one of the uncoolest places in Japan: rural Nagoya. To compound matters, she is a newlywed. Without even a honeymoon, she accompanies her new husband to a land where she has nothing to do but perhaps domestic chores. It’s an uncomfortable situation for a self-proclaimed princess that is afraid of losing her equality.
Lisa Fineberg Cook and I would probably not have been the best of friends, had I met her before she came to Japan. She is judgmental, pouty, snide, prudish yet crude, and ignorant. I’m not saying I’m without faults myself, but my experience and attitude was much different coming into the country: I had an interest in the culture, I didn’t mind being alone and different, and I loved the countryside. So her perspective is really different from mine. Does she really change and get the J.A.P. removed by the end of her two years in Japan? Well, I can’t decide, and I don’t want to provide spoilers, but there is a poem mentioned, and an incident with a foreigner when she gets back that gives us hope she has changed.
In some ways, this is not really a book about Japan at all. It could have taken place in any foreign culture. Rather, it is about how living in a different environment may have changed Lisa. If you are contemplating a trip to or a stay in Japan, this book may be useful for you though. Materialists like Lisa may get a taste of the worst Japan has to offer while being amused, and others may get an idea of how not to approach the country.
Lisa is not an expert on Japanese culture. For instance, she mentions being appalled at men reading pornographic comics. Somehow, she missed the whole Yaoi phenomenon and it’s popularity among women. She also seems to think women are looked down upon in Japan, and offers as evidence the fact that their genitals are blurred out in pornography, while somehow overlooking the fact that male genitalia are always blurred out as well. One thing I can’t comment on is her mentioning female students sitting on male teacher’s laps in the teacher’s room at a high school. She also claims that the teachers smoke there too. I’ve never worked at a Japanese high school, so I really don’t know if these things were true or something Lisa misremembered.
My concerns about Lisa’s personality and grasp of Japanese culture aside, she writes in a very comedic style. Lisa tells of her epic battle against a Japanese washing machine, of committee-think, and how there is not a woman in Japan without drawn-on eyebrows, among other things, and it is fairly amusing. She gets surprisingly frank for the sake of some humorous stories, even going into detail about what she does with her new husband in bed. So knowing that, and the fact that this reads a lot like the voice-over to an episode of Sex and the City, you can consider yourself warned.
If you want to check it out, here is the book on Amazon America
Contributor Bio: Claytonian blogs and vlogs about Japan, language, and news at The Hopeless Romantic. His manliness is not threatened by the occasional chic lit book, but his sanity is.
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
