Dave Barry Does Japan

by Dave Barry

Paperback, 1993

Status

Available

Call number

814

Publication

Fawcett Books (1993), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 224 pages

Description

Nonfiction. Humor (Nonfiction.) HTML: DAVE BARRY DOES JAPAN Without bothering to get approval from the President, the State Department, or even the FTC, Dave Barry's publisher sent him to Tokyo. You'd think they would have known better. Now the word is that Barry has set back our diplomatic relations with the whole Pacific Rim by a couple of decades. Japanese culture, dining, sport and industry all come under Dave's relentless scrutiny: The yawn was invented by the Japanese as a necessary reaction to their version of baseball. . . Japanese stand up comedians kneel down probably praying for laughs. . And the source of Japan's unfair advantage in auto manufacturing is . . . they use STEEL! So If you President Bush committed a social gaffe by losing his composure and his lunch in front of the Japanese Prime Minister, wait until you hear Dave's commentaries. And in the meantime, if you're planning a trip to Japan, don't leave home without Barry's pearls of wisdom about the mysterious Far East. You might want to change your itinerary!.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member rakerman

A really cool book about trying to understand another culture.

5 more

LibraryThing member sweetiegherkin

This book chronicles Dave Barry’s thoughts and rants on American and Japanese cultures after having spent three weeks traveling in Japan. In typical Dave Barry style, his writing shows a perceptive, witty mind and sometimes his vignettes are laugh out loud funny. A decade later, some of his

comments are even more pertinent, such as American car companies’ inability to keep pace with Japanese fuel-efficient cars. Other points are still important to keep in mind – for instance, how Americans can learn about respect and responsibility from the Japanese. The audiobook version ends with a tutorial on learning Japanese numbers, which seems odd as it is not really within the scope of the book. Overall, the book is a quick read (could easily be done in a day) and is a great pick-me-up providing comic relief for a dull day.

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LibraryThing member tloeffler

Dave Barry reports on his three-week trip to Japan in 1991. Laugh-out-loud funny.

LibraryThing member bragan

Humorist Dave Barry's account of his 1992 tourist trip to Japan. This features some of Barry's observations about Japanese culture (or the tiny little bit of it he experienced), but is mostly dominated by the usual hapless-tourist-afraid-of-eating-things-with-tentacles kind of humor. This being

Dave Barry, it manages to be very funny, in any case. Well, except for the chapter where he visits Hiroshima. It's hard to make Hiroshima funny, so he is thoughtful about it, instead, without somehow making that feel like a jarring shift in tone.

When it comes to his observations on Japanese culture, though, such as they are, I am struck by how much either Japan or American perceptions of Japan have changed since this was written. I was surprised at Barry's impression: "What I'm about to say is extremely presumptuous, considering my abysmally limited knowledge of Japanese culture, but I'll say it anyway: I think Japan isn't as much fun as the United States. If countries were TV-show characters, Japan would be Sergeant Joe Friday on the old Dragnet, wearing a suit, filmed in black and white, grinding away at his job, getting just the facts." A far cry from today's stereotypes of Japan as a wacky, wacky place!

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LibraryThing member danoomistmatiste

Incredibly funny book about the Author's 3 week visit to Japan.

LibraryThing member SqueakyChu

I started out reading his book with quite a few laugh-out-loud moments. After I was about half-way through this book, it no longer seemed all that funny to me any more. I am familiar with Japan, not from traveling there, but from reading Japanese fiction and from hearing about Japan from my older

son's frequent travels there. I have come to respect the Japanese culture even though it is quite different from my own. For this reason, the more I read this book, the more I became disappointed with Barry's "appreciation" of Japanese culture. It was this same reason which in the past turned me off to some of Bill Bryson's "humorous" travel writing. What's entertaining about someone poking fun at something one truly knows well is quite different than poking fun at another culture, something deeply personal. It no longer comes off as funny.

Fortunately, the chapter about Hiroshima was appropriately somber. The conclusion also hit the right notes by noting some marked differences between the American and Japanese cultures with at least a degree of respect.

This is not to disparage Dave Barry's humor. His other writing I find hilarious. This book did not sit too well with me, though.

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