Beauty and Chaos

Here’s a book of essays on Tokyo, told by an American who’s lived there for a while now. It reads like blog entries, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s certainly better written than most blogs, not including this one (up to you to guess if I’m joking).
I’ve been to Japan a half dozen times, but never for more than a few days, certainly not long enough to gain the type of insights he has on the culture. His is an interesting point of view, a Westerner in Tokyo but someone who’s lived there for years, more than just a tourist, so he fills the inbetween.
There’s a whole chapter on how people hold themselves up on trains; he says women have better balance, even in heels, holding on to the straps with their fingers, while men use the whole palm. That’s the kind of close detail you can expect in this book. There’s also a piece on why Japanese women go even more overboard with pink than American women, yet the color is also used to attract men to sex stuff. And everything else is white, black, or grey. Hmmm. . .
This book is filled with interesting tidbits that most people, including the residents, wouldn’t notice. There’s a chapter on how ubiquitous maps are, which I certainly don’t remember from my trips to Tokyo, and I would have remembered, cuz I love maps. . . which is why I’m enjoying this anyway, vicariously. Another entry talks about shopping bags, including how they would save civilization in a major earthquake; that’s too silly even for Japan. But for someone who’s never been there, or only for a short time as a tourist, it gives a sense of wonder, almost like science-fiction, reading about a whole new world. And isn’t that what travel books are supposed to do?
4.5/5

A beautiful read which looks in a calm, collected and mostly serene manner onto the idiosyncrasies of Japan from the perspective of an outsider, which is what everyone not born in Japan probably always will be. I really enjoyed the book as it goes well beyond anything a travel guide can tell you about a country and having been in Japan myself not long ago I could relate to a lot of the impressions Pronko shares in his collection of essays. Each essay is self-contained on a certain subject, which makes the book easy to pick up and start reading any story which might look interesting. Definitely recommended.