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David Chadwick, a Texas-raised wanderer, college dropout, bumbling social activist, and hobbyhorse musician, began his study under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1966. In 1988 Chadwick flew to Japan to begin a four-year period of voluntary exile and remedial Zen education. In Thank You and OK! he recounts his experiences both inside and beyond the monastery walls and offers insightful portraits of the characters he knew in that world--the bickering monks, the patient abbot, the trotting housewives, the ominous insects, the bewildered bureaucrats, and the frustrating English-language students--as they worked inexorably toward initiating him into the mysterious ways of Japan. Whether you're interested in Japan, Buddhism, or exotic travel writing, this book is great fun.… (more)
User reviews
The world that Chadwick describes - both the world of Zen and the world of modern Japan - are alien enough to most people to come right from a
In the tradition of both Mark Twain and Armistaed Maupin, Chadwick's chapters are small and lightly written. His keen observations of day-to-day life both inside the monastery and in the larger community make the book come alive. Some chapters will make you laugh out loud at the antics of the monks at Hogo-ji. Some chapters, as Chadwick remembers one of his lost teachers Katagiri Roshi, will make you cry. And you'll be shocked (or at least I was) at what some of the current Japanese think of their social framework, government, and imperial system.
Chadwick has given us a "slice-of-life" book covering a life and environment that the vast majority of us will never experience. If you have any interest in Japanese or Zen society, you must read this book.
Thank You and OK! covers a four year period in Texan Chadwick's life and there are two threads to his story: his stay at Hogoji monastery and his life with his second wife Elin in modern Japan. As an aside, one needs to pay attention to dates to orientate oneself to each story but it isn't hard to do.
My biggest take-away from reading Thank You and OK! is just how different are the details when the bigger picture is the same. What I mean by that is Japan and the United States both have vending machines, but you can buy hot sake out of one in Japan. Japan and the United States both have weird insects, but in Japan their centipedes are over a foot long and are poisonous. Counting the months of pregnancy even differ. In the States we start with zero. In Japan they start with one. That's oversimplifying the case, but you get the idea.