Product Description

Learning to Bow has been heralded as one of the funniest, liveliest, and most insightful books ever written about the clash of cultures between America and Japan. With warmth and candor, Bruce Feiler recounts the year he spent as a teacher in a small rural town. Beginning with a ritual outdoor bath and culminating in an all-night trek to the top of Mt. Fuji, Feiler teaches his students about American culture, while they teach him everything from how to properly address an envelope to how to date a Japanese girl.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79106 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-01
• Released on: 2004-05-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780060577209
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Feiler's account offers an instructive, amusing inside look at a vaunted educational system. Invited by the Japanese Ministry of Education to teach English in a junior high school, Feiler arrived, shortly after graduation from Yale, in rural Sano, 50 miles north of Tokyo, where he was the first foreigner seen by many of the city's inhabitants. Among the cultural shocks he describes is his welcome with a ritual collective outdoor bath. Noting that characteristics such as group loyalty and community responsibility are fostered in a system that requires students to clean their schools and neighborhoods, Feiler lists aspects of the Japanese system that might successfully be translated to American schools, while acknowledging such negatives as the lack of free choice and individual expression. BOMC selection.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA-- Curious YAs will welcome this sensitive and readable account by a young American exchange teacher of his years in a junior high school system 50 miles outside Tokyo. He talks about much more than school life, however, and readers cannot help comparing the Japanese society to ours, sometimes finding ours, theirs, or both wanting. American students (and teachers) will be particularly interested to learn how Japanese schools instill in students a sense of responsibility to the group and the state, using activities that would set up a howl if suggested here. --Judy McAloon, Richard Byrd Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In 1987-88, Feiler was a participant in the Japanese government's Living English program, teaching English and American culture in the middle schools of Sano, a rural town north of Tokyo. His report is a light-hearted yet extremely perceptive analysis of an educational system which systematically and deliberately teaches students the work ethic and a strong group identity. After his first-day welcome in a communal bath, Feiler is encouraged by his host family and friends to participate in festivals, observances, and local customs, all of which he colorfully describes. He also contrasts Japanese and American school objectives while thoroughly examining Japanese educational methodology. His book is recommended to educators and all who want to understand contemporary Japanese culture. See also Lois Peak's Learning to Go to School in Ja pan , reviewed on p. 116.--Ed.
- Shirley L. Hopkinson, San Jose State Univ., Cal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A glimpse into Japan of the late 1980's
The primary strength of this book is the writing style. Unlike many books about Japanese culture, this book is funny and "living." The book contains a series of anecdotes, each one focusing on a particular experience that Bruce S. Feiler had during his stay. The stories are written as first-person memoirs, and cover such broad topics as Hiroshima and Nagasaki to how to date a Japanese girl. The writing is clever and engaging.

The only thing I felt this book was lacking was an update of some sort. Written about 11 years ago, "Learning to Bow" is about Japan during the "bubble economy." Japan has gone through severe economic and societal changes since then, and I wonder how much of the information is still current. Surely, with the JET program in full swing for several decades now, the presence of foreigners is not such a surprise anymore. Also, the place of women has gone through some significant changes since this book was written.

Still, anyone planning a long-term stay in Japan should read this book. It is fun, insightful and has great tips for climbing Mt. Fuji.

This is how it really is
Bruce Feiler was one of the first participants on the JET program, a program sponsored by the Japanese government to bring foreign young people to Japan for the purposes of education and "internationalization." While Feiler's experiences are a little unusual, in that he can already speak Japanese when he arrives and the events at his school are rather dramatic, overall his story reflects the life of a typical JET program participant. The culture shock, the unbending bureaucracy, the complex and often disaffected attitudes of students, the instant celebrity and lack of privacy that goes with it, are all symptoms that JETs experience. I read the book and often found myself nodding in agreement, having experience the same events and feelings myself. If you want to have an intimate look at the world of education in Japan today, Feiler's book is an excellent place to start. If you are thinking about joining the JET program, this book is a must, along with Importing Diversity.

A Bag of Wind
If I hadnt actually lived in Japan i could see how i could mistake this thing for authoritive, but it amazes me that anyone who has lived out here more than a year could see this as much more than the bag of wind it is. With its pretentious title and lofty quotations of translated haikus, Feiler proves he knows how to make a good impression. The problem is, if you actually read it, you realize he isnt much good at doing anything else.

At the time of writing this book, Feiler had been living out here a year as JET highschool teacher (though he doesnt actually admit to that in so many words- to hear him tell it, he was here on "special invite from the japanese goverment", as if he was some kind of high-ranking diplomat). The title ("Inside the heart of Japan") and chapter headings ("Drinking alone in rural Japan", for example), suggest that by reading it you'll gain powerful, poetic realities about this mysterious country. But every chapter left me unsastisfied. He has a habit of starting chapters with an overwritten account of the kind of thing everyone does within a week of being here, and then, when its time to actually say anything, starts quoting press articles off the english language news services wire. If you comb the book carefully to seperate these rote repetitions of facts already freely available from what he actually writes himself, you'll be left with a very slim and trite account of japan indeed.

Its a good thing for the author there are so few books of this type about Japan out there, because if people had more to compare it with they'd realize how bad it is. Anyone who came out here to teach english for a year and scanned the internet for newspaper articles to quote from for padding could have written this book.