This is a well written book of a professor of English who has visited Japan a number of times, initially as part of an exchange program. It describes here awkward adaptation but eventually real love of Japanese ways of life. As she peels back layers of understanding, she finds a greater and more appreciative reality. For instance, she had thought that wives were totally under the thumb of their husbands, until she found out from a woman in her apartment complex that this was not really true. This wife had determined that her family could move, and without any participation by the husband, she found their new home new and negotiated all the finances. She hoped her husband would like, because he would see it for the first time after their furniture would have been moved in. Cathy Davidson realized that very few wives in the U.S. would do a substantive life change without ones spouse's participation.

The book is written in chapters that outline a number of her unfoldings while living in Japan. Her assumptions of life there are challenged, but she also challenges her students at Kansai's Women's University to see life differently, particularly as they learn the English language. This is a book well worth reading, but each chapter should be savored separately, as might look at the prints of Katsushika Hokusai's, for which the book is titled. ( )

An American’s close look at Japan. The author sees many of the troubling aspects of Japan that receive so much press, but she also takes on wife-husband relationship difficulties, students’ inability to shake off conformity, and Japanese social pressures. ( )

A personal, sensitive, and thoughtful examination of one woman's experiences in Japan. Davidson travels to Japan on four different occasions, from teaching there for an extended amount of time, to simply traveling there with her husband as they contemplate moving to Japan permanently. Each chapter is a little peek into Davidson's various experiences and obsessions over the years. Some chapters focus on her observations of Japanese culture and society as she tries her best to "understand" Japan; other chapters focus on events in her life such as the death of her husband's mother or the deaths of her husband's brother and wife. These events are intertwined in her Japan experiences as they happened either while she was still there, or preparing for a trip there. It is easy to see that Davidson's life was forever changed and influenced by Japan, from her first visit to her last. Being so enraptured with so many aspects of Japanese life, Davidson and her husband even contemplated living in Japan. Finally they built a Japanese-style in house in North Carolina, their own compromise - they felt they couldn't live in Japan, but they also felt uneasy just going back to normal in the states. From their experiences they created a happy medium for themselves. This book is beautifully written and manages to be both funny and poignant. I laughed out loud at her humorous cultural missteps, and at other points I cried at feeling her personal anguish and helplessness towards the misfortunes of her friends. ( )

Cathy Davidson's interwoven stories of her four extended trips gave me a glimpse of a far different Japan than most travelers see. Instead of recounting visits chronologically, the book explores aspects of Japanese social behavior and the Japanese psyche. The author blends her experiences teaching English in a Japanese women's university in a suburb of Osaka, her penchant for off-the-beaten path travel, and her commitment to making and maintaining Japanese friendships into a series of essays. Some of the essays focus on educational matters--the role mothers play in preparing children for school, the infamous juku cram schools, and the seeming contradiction between students who toil for years to gain admittance to prestigious universities only to rarely attend class. Others deal with her struggles to understand the context of Japanese behavior--whether visiting the entertainment district with the a male colleague, vacationing on the isle of Oki and befriending a local bar owner who shares her enthusiasm for glass fishing floats, or struggling to find the right words to thank an assortment of friends and university associates in a time of grief.

At times the author's attempts to honestly depict her reactions to the Japanese world around her seemed to flicker and then just fade away, leaving me with unanswered questions. But her admiration of the Japanese culture and people, evident in the loving care with which she built a Japanese style house and welcomed Japanese friends there, always shone through. In the end I came to appreciate that the Western world's struggles to fully understand Japanese culture are a more fitting descriptions of its complexity than any neatly wrapped explanation. ( )

Wonderful read. A poignient story of one woman and two cultures. The subtitle "finding myself" is accurate, but she also found the heart of America and Japan. Beautifully written. ( )