Tokyo Daze: A Gaijin's Drift Through Bubble-Era Tokyo

by Mark Coughlin

A late-bubble memoir of minor triumphs and private humiliations.

Forget the usual travelogues and polished "gaijin adventure" stories. This memoir was written while it was happening, during the final years of Japan's economic bubble.

In 1984, a 24-year-old American arrived at Narita with one suitcase, $1,200 in traveler's checks, and a copy of Jobs in Japan.

Language schools, visas, and the daily scramble to make next month's rent.

No tidy lessons. No romantic gloss. Just the uncertain, sometimes absurd reality of a young man drifting through Tokyo in the 1980s, recorded as it unfolded.

97 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 24, 2026

About the author

Mark Coughlin is an American former English teacher who spent over 30 years in Japan. His memoir, Tokyo Daze: A Gaijin’s Drift Through Bubble-Era Tokyo, is an unfiltered account of the minor triumphs and private humiliations of a young man slowly falling apart during the mid-1980s economic bubble.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tokyo Daze is an interesting glimpse of life for an American teaching English in Japan during the 1980s. Good short read. Thanks to Goodreads, the publisher, and author for this giveaway. I have given my honest review.

[Edward Gelband · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to Read More

Good, matter of fact memoir. I get a sense of life back then in Tokyo. I would like to read more.

[Paris]

i thought this was going to involve drifting lol