Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.93 (540 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0449004287 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 272 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-07-22 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
In 12 beautifully turned essays she shuttles between these two cultures, observing local customs with a wondering eye. Kyoko Mori spent a largely unhappy childhood chafing at social restrictions in Japan before migrating to the American Midwest. . "Every moment, I am on the verge of hitting something and hurting myself or someone else, but I have no way of guessing where the dangers are." Despite frustration and puzzlement, Mori rarely swerves even to make her own limitations more palatable. "Having a conversation in Japanese is like driving in the dark without a headlight," she says. Too bold to be emotionally fluent in either land, Mori scrutinizes--and sometimes ridicules--the sound of a
Observations from the inside of Japan Ms. Mori, in her social commentary and comparison between the Midwest and Japan, exposes the soft underbelly of contemporary Japanese culture. Having hosted over 25 exchange students from Japan (all women) I began to have a deeper understanding of what their experience of Japan really was.To be sure, Ms. Mori is an English professor, and her social examinations are based on her own experi. Joseph D. Seckelman said Excellent book, a bit angry at Japan in the beginning.. A book that should be read by every business person that ever has dealings with Japan and Japanese. The book (at least in the beginning) gives an accurate description of the pyrimid like quality of the Japanese language and Japanese customs. It conveys a sense of the Japanese high regard for formalities and their need to be addressed by title and rank. It is as if they are from another ce. VR said couldn't get past her negativity. I just read the title at the library and picked it up, thinking it would be interesting to get her perspective. I grew up in the midwest and am now living in Japan. However, after reading the first chapter and the first page of the second chapter, I couldn't go on. She comes across as a strongly negative person who can find something to complain about everyone and everything. As other rev
From her unhappy childhood in Japan, weighted by a troubled family and a constricting culture, to the American Midwest, where she found herself free to speak as a strong-minded independent woman, though still an outsider, Mori explores the different codes of silence, deference, and expression that govern Japanese and American women's lives: the ties that bind us to family and the lies that keep us apart; the rituals of mourning that give us the courage to accept death; the images of the body that make sex seem foreign to Japanese women and second nature to Americans. In this powerful, exquisitely crafted book, Kyoko Mori delves into her dual heritage with a rare honesty that is both graceful and stirring. In the sensitive hands of this compelling writer, one woman's life becomes the mirror of two profoundly different societies.