Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan

by Bruce Feiler

Offers a glimpse of Japan's most important national resource--education--and provides descriptions of Japanese culture and how an American teacher adapted to it

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction, Travel, Memoir, Asia, Biography Memoir, Education

321 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

BRUCE FEILER is one of America’s most popular voices on contemporary life. He is the author of six consecutive New York Times bestsellers; the presenter of two prime-time series on PBS; and the inspiration for the drama COUNCIL OF DADS on NBC. Bruce’s two TED Talks have been viewed more than two million times. Employing a firsthand approach to his work, Bruce is known for living the experiences he writes about. His work combines timeless wisdom with timely knowledge turned into practical, positive messages that allow people to live with more meaning, passion, and joy. His new book, LIFE IS IN THE TRANSITIONS: Mastering Change at Any Age, describes his journey across America, collecting hundreds of life stories, exploring how we can navigate the growing number of life transitions with greater purpose and skill.

For more than a decade, Bruce has explored the intersection of families, relationships, health, and happiness. His book THE SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILIES collects best practices from some of the country’s most creative minds. The book was featured on World News, GMA, and TODAY and excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Parade. THE COUNCIL OF DADS describes how, faced with one of life’s greatest challenges, he asked six friends to support his young daughters. The book was profiled in PEOPLE, USA Today, and Time and was the subject of a CNN documentary hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Since 2001, Bruce has been one of the country’s preeminent thinkers about the role of spirituality in contemporary life. WALKING THE BIBLE describes his 10,000-mile journey retracing the Five Books of Moses through the desert. (“An instant classic,” Washington Post). The book spent a year and a half on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into fifteen languages.

ABRAHAM recounts his search for the shared ancestor of the monotheistic religions. (“Exquisitely written,” Boston Globe). WHERE GOD WAS BORN describes his trek visiting biblical sites throughout Israel, Iraq, and Iran. (“Bruce Feiler is a real-life Indiana Jones,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution). AMERICA’S PROPHET is the groundbreaking story of the influence of Moses on American history. THE FIRST LOVE STORY is a journey across four continents exploring how Adam and Eve shaped our deepest feelings about relationships. (“A miraculous thing—the literary equivalent of breathing new life into a figure of clay,” New York Times Book Review; “Feiler’s best work yet,” Publishers Weekly).

A native of Savannah, Georgia, Bruce lives in Brooklyn with wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their identical twin daughters.

Reviews

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Make that 2.5 stars from me, but I'm giving it the benefit of 3 in the rankings. I'm nice enough to round up. It was definitely solidly between "It was OK" and "I liked it."

Part of my problem with this book is the fact that I'm on my fifth year in Japan, whereas the author only stayed for one year. My first year in Japan began in 2004. The author's was 15 years before that, around 1989 or 1990. A lot of things have changed; a lot of things haven't.

How I explain it to most of my ex-patriot pals here is that Feiler took his Japan experiences and wrote it so that some of the most annoying things about being a foreigner living in Japan sound charming or endearing. They're not. But, those who read the book who haven't lived here... will actually believe it.

What was especially interesting for me in reading about his experiences was getting a look at how the first ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) were treated when they came to Japan. The program has only been around for 20 years or so, but people are now accustomed to our presence and know to expect us in towns and schools all over Japan. I also appreciated that, unlike a lot of I-moved-to-Japan-for-a-year-and-lived-to-tell-about-it memoir, this book actually includes a lot of well-researched factual information about Japanese culture, religion, history, and social norms. Even after having lived here for nearly five years, I learned a thing or two from this book.

Read the book if you're coming to Japan. Much of the information about education, the style of teaching in junior high schools, and the students' inability to communicate in 'Living English' is still true today, so many years later. Read the book if you lived in Japan for a year, went home, and have been home for a few years and now look at your time in Japan with that rosey nostalgic feeling that you get about most experiences after a length of time away. I wouldn't nececssarily recommend reading this book if you're living in Japan, and have been for quite some time, and plan to continue living in Japan for a few more years.

[Renee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Several people had told me I should check this book out because the author also went through the whole `Teaching English in Japan` experience. However, I was disappointed with the book, particularly in the wording. Having had many of the same experiences as the author, it was interesting to gain a different perspective on the customs one experiences in Japan. The unfortunate thing is that many of his observations have a `I`m better than this` or `This is silly and I can`t believe I have to do this` air to them.

In the end, I decided to not even finish the book because of my disappointment and also annoyance at the author`s attitude.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

NO SPOILERS
Finished: I enjoyed this book very much. It never dragged. It always kept you thinking. What the author learned about the Japanese mentality during his one year teaching job was clearly and humorously described. I have absolutely no complaints. He not only learned about the Japanese but also reached philosophical insights concerning how different people and different cultures can truly learn to understand each other and hopefully learn from each other too!

Through page 209: Chapter 17 - The Way of Love: How to Pick Up a Japanese Girl - really couldn't be funnier!!! We have all heard of "love hotels", well here you have them. The advice given by two married men is the funniest. Their logic, their reasoning and their queries! And the glint in their eyes!

Still reading: This book is an amazing eye-opener. It offers a completely different way of looking at how people can be educated. I don't mean merely "school" learning but in becoming members of society. Education is simply approached in a completely different manner. I am talking about how you teach citizens to have pride in their country, how you teach the need to take car of our environment or how you teach people to work with each other. Although all Japanese children are trained to respect and follow the rules of their teachers, they are also in a very natural way allowed to interact with these same leaders on a personal and equal basis. The separation of public and private selves is hair-line thin. School children don aprons and fetch and serve the lunch which they all share in their classrooms. There are no cafeterias. Then they clean everything up and change back to their normal school uniforms. During lunch their homeroom teacher eats with them in a very relaxed manner. He loosens his tie, they ask him if he has a girl friend yet. They relate to each other as equals. All duties are carried out by the students and teachers together. They clean the school, and they have fun doing it. Who can mop up the floor most efficiently and quickly? Everything is a game. You see this playfulness and group/country allegiance on any short visit to Japan. Here follows a quote about how allegiance to their country is instilled in the pupils.

"Beginning on their first day in school, students learn a familiar refrain about their country: 'Japan is a small island nation with few natural resources, which is surrounded by countries that are bigger and stronger, and out to weaken us. If we are to succeed, we Japanese must work harder and longer to overcome these odds.' In essence this has become the Japanese pledge. By stressing this code and encouraging children to sacrifice their personal desires for the good of the country, schools have been able to achieve what is , perhaps, their highest calling: to forge allegiance to the state."

Western attitudes are so much more focused on independence and free thinking and surviving alone. Startling!

Starting: Having finished The Ginger Tree, I now must read another book about Japan. This one is about the author's experiences when he lived in a small village, half-way between Nikko and Tokyo, teaching English to junior high students. Maybe he taught them English, but they taught him much, much more - about bathing and bowing and yes even how to date a Japanese girl. I am still laughing about some of the lines in the Ginger Tree. for example Mary's description of sushi being a soggy lump of cold rice wrapped in seaweed and raw fish. She stated that if the Japanese wanted to attract more foreigners they would simply have to do something about their food. I love sushi and maki and the pickled vegetables are my favorite. YUM!

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a few of these "the gaijin in Japan" books over the years, and aside from Donald Ritchie's The Inland Sea (which is really a special case), this is the best of them, even though by now it's probably a little dated. I liked it because Feiler examines life in a smallish town, not the Tokyo megalopolis. He focuses mostly on one element of Japanese society--the education system (he taught English for a year in the local junior high school)--and delves deeply into his experiences within it. He uses these experiences as a focal point around which to concentrate his take on the society and culture of Japan as a whole. I thought it worked admirably well. Of course, it helps that the man can write and has a nicely judged sense of humor. On the whole I'd recommend this one very strongly to anyone with an interest in the Japanese. It's thoughtful, fair, and endlessly engaging. Thanks to this one, I'm looking forward to reading Feiler's other books.

[Bridgey McElroy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - I read a little over half of this book in the two weeks before I traveled to Japan, and I would absolutely, positively recommend it as a pre-trip read for anybody visiting. It’s an interesting, easy way to learn a bit about Japanese culture through the lens of a Westerner before touching down in the land of the rising sun, and I was happy to have the context. I wish I had given myself more of a runway pre-trip to finish it because by the time I got home, I was way less interested. Having experienced firsthand a lot of what is discussed, it became a slog.

That said… if I had read the chapter on the love hotel prior to my trip, I would have thought the concept preposterous and Feiler’s description of it most certainly exaggerated, but after speaking with Japanese people about love hotels, I just laughed, knowing that part of the book, as strange as it seemed, was entirely accurate.

TLDR: Highly rec for Japan travel prep, otherwise prolly would pass

[Kristi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am one of those people that does not have a terribly high interest in learning about Japan, but for some reason picked up this book. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it. I think learning about another culture through what goes on with children and school is great way to find out thing you might never know. It was funny and easy reading. There were a couple parts that were slightly boring. I understand that Japan may have changed since this author was there, that this account may be how it was once and it may not be that way now.........but so what, do we really expect someone to write an account of what they may experience in the future?

I learned more about the Japanese culture in the first chapter than I have ever known about it before. To those critics commenting that they have been there and it was not like this, or this was the most basic information, I say....so what. For someone who will most likely never go to Japan (me) it was very enlightening and enjoyable. It was HIS experience, not yours. Was it written in the highest and most enlightened form of writing? Probably not. Do I care? No.

[Tori]

2010- I had to really struggle to get through this book, which was not what I was expecting. Rather than getting a book that focused on the struggles of being an English teacher in a small Japanese city, the author tended to write mainly about his personal life, with his educational experiences as a backdrop. Also, he had the tendency to come across as quite arrogant at some points. I'd be interested in reading a more current book that focuses more on the Japanese educational system and the experiences of teacher (be they foreign or not).

[Anne Fromontreal]

I mostly skimmed through the book, but overall, it hasn’t aged very well.

The book is written as a kind of diary, following a white, privileged man teaching English at a school in Japan during the 1990s. There are some interesting moments, particularly his reflections on cultural differences and how they shape both students and society. I appreciated his exploration of the teacher’s role in Japan and the sense of social duty and respect that children have for their country.

However, many parts felt deeply insensitive. He refers to local housing as “creative camping,” and at one point recounts the story of a young boy taking his own life in the first person — as though he could truly understand what the boy was going through. While I can see that his intention was to critique Japanese society in contrast to his own, his lack of awareness about inequalities in America undermines his argument. It ends up feeling condescending rather than insightful.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, although I was constantly aware that it was written in 1990-91, about a late 80s experience in Japan. A lot has changed in both the US and Japan in the interim - so much in the US alone. Were the author himself repeat a similar experience today (which he couldn't, of course, because his experience is so grounded in the 1980s, but I did say "similar") I'd expect a very different book.

A lot of the reviews criticize what they consider to be the author's ethnocentrism, which I think is mostly unfair. He wasn't there for a year strictly to teach English, or study Japanese, he was there "to teach English and American culture"at the invitation of the Japanese Ministry of Education. The idea was, as I understand it, to promote Japan's efforts to "internationalize" young Japanese students in order for them to be more successful in their future professions in banking, finance, business, construction, and other endeavors which would involve contact with non-Japanese.

So Feiler's attention was of course drawn to ways in which the Japanese students and teachers and towns and culture he encountered both differed and replicated his own American experience. He was careful to point out both the strengths and the weaknesses in Japanese education culture - that was his mission, and I think he accomplished it without being exceptionally condescending.

One aspect makes me curious, and that is what the passage of time means in terms of his discussion of women and girls. I would expect a current account would be (or should be) very very different, because there have been huge cultural, global shifts from 1989 to today in 2019. I suspect I'd see the most change in his perception of women and girls, and not just Japanese women and girls, because OMG it's been 30 years.

So I found this to be an interesting snapshot of a time that has passed. It's still valuable, but you can never forget that it is dated.

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

While it was maybe more relevant back when it was written there are a few things that have changed. Yes, Sano is now not what I would consider country-side. It is much more grown up, at least the areas I have been to. And Japan is no longer in the bubble-era, which means that excessive spending has been capped, slightly.

However, most startling are the things that haven't changed in Japan. The education system is almost exactly the same. The main difference being that the students are more used to seeing a foreigner in their school as the JET program and other similar companies have been around for a number of years.

I was also surprised at the author's often ethnocentric views. For someone who says he studied Japanese language (and one would assume at least a little of the culture from the language lessons), he seemed surprisingly unknowledgeable about Japan. It is even more shocking since he says that he studied in Japan for 6 months. I can understand certain moments of disbelief – I still have them after being here for more than two years now – but his lack of cultural understanding bordered on ignorance. And the way in which he would just confront people, openly, rather than simply accepting the differences, or at least being less confrontational, was mind-boggling.

It isn’t a bad book, per se, but some of his claims are not substantiated which makes it hard to take him seriously at parts. When read along other accounts it helps to paint a picture of Japan, but it shouldn’t be read on its own.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for a Japanese book club I am involved in. We all liked this book, finding it well-written in a personable style, amusing but respectful to the people of Japan. We liked how Feiler tried to incorporate a broader understanding of Japanese history and culture, even though he may not have gotten everything quite right. My Japanese born-and-raised friends recognized their own rigid educational upbringing. To read about it in Feiler's words as a foreign observer gave clarity to something they had not stopped to articulate before. We had quite a discussion about home life vs the dominance of school life in teaching children not just school subjects but how to behave for the benefit of all - and comparison to the US educational system which they came here for. Even one of my young friends affirmed her Japanese education was similar to what Feiler reported, especially the teaching of English language.

In the end, Feiler is one foreign white man in one Japanese town for a limited time back in the late 1980s. What I liked is his personable writing style, his curiosity and his observant nature, and his willingness to try to understand a different culture. Japan is a very interesting country. Feiler may prefer the American way, but he comes across as a friend of the Japanese people.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't finish it. I just couldn't.

[Eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

2020 bk 361. Almost immediately after college, Bruce (not an education major) gets a job teaching English in Japan. Thankfully co - teaching, his job is to work on conversational Japanese with those teachers that will let him talk. This is an interesting view of the Japanese education system from someone who is not an educator. He does one thing very well - he is an excellent researcher so He at least has added to his body of knowledge after first describing gut level reactions to events, places, and people at particular moments of their lives. For those expecting details of student relations to each other - you won't find it here. For all that he was a 'teacher', he was exempt from a lot of work of a Japanese public education teacher (no parent conferences, late night phone calls, didn't seem to do any grading, didn't seem to participate in 'extra-duties'). An interesting book, and while he didn't seem to be aware, I had the sense that he only saw about an inch of the many layers of education in that country.

[Amy Webster-Bo · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was a non fiction book, and a true story about a man living in Japan, it was hard to read, and just ok. I lived in japan and i had a different experience when i lived them, but it was good.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1991 book tells the story of Bruce Feiler who went to Japan to teach English for a year. The book is an excellent examination of the Japanese culture and the difficulties an American might have in trying to adapt to it. Despite the difficulties, though, Feiler does adapt very well and makes numerous friends and does a very credible job teaching.

It's fascinating to read about his adventures in taking his first multi-person bath; in his experiment with nanpa, or picking up girls, and the astonishment of many Japanese that he could speak Japanese very well and even use chopsticks!

The book also goes into detail on the Japanese educational system and gives the reader a good idea of what the typical student does during the day. He also has a number of statistic and other things which are quite interesting.

For example, "In terms of time, Japanese students spend twenty-five percent more days in school than Americans, so a high school graduate in Japan has spent as much time in class as a college graduate in the United States.

This is related to the fact that the Japanese school system is for all practical purposes year-round, divided into terms with relatively short breaks between the terms. This avoids the "gone all summer, forget everything" problem that plagues many American students in U.S. schools.

The purposes of the schools differs, also. In Japan the purpose is basically to produce young adults who will be good citizens and fit into the culture well. In the U.S., the purpose is to prepare students for their specific careers, and to satisfy the politicians by passing numerous standard tests. In essence, the Japanese system is to produce someone who will fit into their culture well; in the U.S. the overall well-being of the student is irrelevant.

"In terms of dropout rates, ninety-five percent of Japanese children graduate from high school, compared with seventy-five percent of Americans." In some U.S. cities, the graduation rate can be even lower, down near sixty percent. Fancy accounting procedures tends to keep this hidden from the public, however.

"Schools are successful in Japan for this simple reason: they are seen as a national security priority." Japan, a country of limited natural resources, must develop their many available resource and that is people. Thus, students are brought willing to sacrifice some of their own desires in order to benefit the society in general.

Keeping in mind that this is a 1991 book, some of the material reflects concerns only recently in the news, and this relates to what is in Japanese textbooks and how some other countries are protesting what is in the books and what is left out of the books. He writes that the history book used (at that time) in the junior high where he taught had five pages dealing with World War Ii. One page was the early years and the attack on Pearl Harbor; one page was about the middle of the war and island fighting, and three pages dealt with the fire-bombing of Japanese cities and the dropping of the atomic bombs. The Japanese attack on Nanking (also referred to as the "Rape of Nanking" ) is covered in three sentences, the Japanese invasion of Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia are not mentioned at all.

It is interesting to compare things left out of U.S. textbooks. For example, the entire "let's-wipe-out-the-Native American-savages" thing, how the white man basically attempted genocide on all the native peoples of this country is generally glossed over. The forced American opening of Japan (Admiral Perry), the American-business backed coup in Hawaii that took it from being an independent nation to a U.S. possession; the (unnecessary) Spanish-American war in the late 1800's; these and other examples show that history is written by the winners and the politicians, and things that the politicians don't want people to know or think about are generally left out of the standard textbooks.

The book also does point up some problems in Japanese education, of course, including the fact that students who go abroad for a year or more and then return to Japan will often face discrimination by their fellow classmates. The problem of bullying (ijime) is also covered, as it's a fairly significant problem in the schools. (Although the bullying is more psychological in nature, whereas in U.S. schools it's both psychological and physical.

Another major difference in Japanese and U.S. education is in the public's attitude towards teachers. "The teacher in Japan has long been accorded a special, almost sacred status." A lot is expected of them, but they are looked up to and generally treated with respect, whereas in the U.S. teaching is often seen as a job that's not really very significant and that carries little social status.

There's more in this book, too. It's well worth reading and it's written in a style that makes it very readable.

[Jacob Colangelo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like some of the other reviewers here, I read this book during and after my own trip to Japan. I have a minor in Japanese (and would probably declare a major if my college offered it); I've been studying the language and culture for three years, have written a number of papers on Japanese history, art, culture, language, etc., and taught English in a college and high school there during my recent trip. I have done all of this because I love Japan, and everything that goes along with it. I'm not Japanese, and I don't claim to be. Japan has many problems and flaws, and I readily admit that. However, those facts do not stop me from seeing issues in Mr. Feiler's book.

I think the biggest problem is that, while he spent a full year in Japan, Mr. Feiler still wrote the book from the perspective of an American. I don't mean to say he doesn't acknowledge or discuss the culture and history from the Japanese side of things, which he does. The problem is that his own commentary always comes with the implication of American superiority. Every discussion of cultural differences (which, as the main point of the book, is an important thing to discuss) includes some way for him to say, "Japan does things in this way, which is fine, but it's bad because in America we...," and so on. Despite his year in Japan, he still seems unwilling to admit that his own perspective is a biased and limited one. He lived in a specific school in a specific area of Japan, and writes as though that experiences makes him an expert on the whole culture.

I have a biased perspective as someone who, as I've confessed, loves Japan, but I couldn't help but feel that this book was unbalanced in its assessment of Japanese culture. There is too much negativity, which is bad for two reasons: 1) Japan, like any other human culture on our planet, has both good and bad things that deserve to be acknowledged more realistically, and 2) it implies that Mr. Feiler the authority to give some kind of rating to an entire society of people. Let me be clear: nobody, not even this man, has the authority to judge the value of a culture. I have said I love Japan, but I will not say that Japan is a better country than others or even a great country. I love it for my own personal reasons, and I don't expect other people to love it for those same reasons as though they're some kind of objective truth. The second-to-last chapter of this book actually includes a categorized set of overall assessments about the Japanese educational system and Japanese culture as a whole. It's like the judging panel for diving at the Olympics: "Oooh, Japan had good form at the beginning, but they could've been a little bit straighter coming into the water at the end!"

One of the points that other reviewers brought up is a good one: this book was published in 1991. That means that anybody reading Mr. Feiler's account of life as an English teacher in Japan is reading about experiences that took place about thirty years ago. The world has changed rapidly in the last thirty years. Taking that in combination with his biased writing and inflated sense of self-importance, that means that the reader who wants to understand Japan in the world of 2018 will receive some bad information. I'm not saying everything he says is incorrect; in fact, a lot of the things he brings up are actually still true about Japan today. It's less about accuracy and more about opinion: the person reading this book comes away with some cultural knowledge and a non-native belief about the problems it's facing and how it should work through them. As a book that should primarily be about cross-cultural understanding, I cannot over-stress the importance of the former and the danger of the latter.

[Patrick Lum (Jintor) · Rating 2 out of 5]

While Bruce Feiler is an informative and knowledgeable narrator who makes overtures towards his conception of understanding and internationalisation, there is a constant whiff of a tendency to sum up Japan based on single sets of examples, or to neatly package up various aspects of an exotic culture under various labels that seems, if not entirely false, at least relatively unsupported. Not unenjoyable, but not exceptionally insightful either. Further, it's based on a single year's stay in Japan many years ago, which detracts significantly from any conclusions the author makes - at least in terms of their relevance to a modern day experience.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This really gives an interesting perspective on being an American in Japan. With the Toyota management system being all the rage this book brought it home to me about why the Japanese are so successful at lean. The obvious secret is that students are raised to not be individuals and are expected to conform and not stand out.

Critical individual thinking is discouraged and when pressed Bruce's students are unable to improvise a response. American's are raised to be individualistic and to find their own path. So you make a rule and the Japanese fall all over each other to abide with it and American's spend all their time coming up with excuses for not conforming.

[Saaaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting, well written and funny in some places.
I don't get it why some people are "inquisitioning" author for writing about Japan after the only year he spent there - so what? people are different and everyone sees the world differently. the person who spent one year in other culture may see more interesting and deep things than someone with 20 years living in the same culture.
and I don't get it, why some people put the low ranks to the books (i don't mean this book only)only because of they where on the mood of something different. it's not the author's fault and they must not suffer because of someone's mood switching problems.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the humor in this book, and now years later what I remember more than anything was the attempts of Japanese girls/women and the author trying to get together. First he didn't understand the hand gestures that he misinterpreted which if he had known what they meant might have resulted in a start of a conversation.

Secondly it was just humorous to me what Japanese women secretly thought about him, and maybe all white foreigners.

You will have to read the book to know what I am talking about

[Diane Nagatomo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful book. The only reason why it took me so long to finish is that I have a hard copy of the book and only read it in the bath. But this is one of the nicest books I've read on someone's "Japan Experience". It may be a bit outdated now...but very true for the time the author was in Japan.

[Blaire · Rating 4 out of 5]

The many ways we humans have developed for organizing ourselves is always interesting to me. This memoir describes one American man's experience during a year spent teaching school in Japan and it provides a view into Japanese culture that I had never encountered before. The book is very well written, funny at times, and it moves along at a lively pace.

[Cain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an intriguing analysis of the Japanese educational system from a Western perspective. I enjoyed it very much, but I am also quite interested in Japanese culture and am seeking employment as an English teacher in Japan.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bruce Feiler's experiences teaching English in Japan are hysterical, accessible, and sometimes nearly unbelievable. A great read for Japanese culture fanatics.

[Andrew Macfarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this when trying to find a book i had read nearly 20 years ago which described the way of life, society and culture of Japan. It wasn't this book, but it did much the same job. The direct experience of many, like this author, who live in Japan is that whilst loving their time there, the society is unfathomably daft. The society is revered by people who generally have never spent a day there let alone a year. They will laud japanese film and comic culture not because they do actually like it. No. They force themselves to like it because a film,culture or literature critic has laudedvit and it is just a little bit more niche than their friends like.Ditto, sushi. Vastly more people claim to like than the number of people who do actually like it.Someone once argued with me that japan is a less class subservient society. They were wrong and from nearly the start of this book there are clear examples that deny such rubbish.one anecdote i remembered from the book i was trying to find was about the proliferation of golf courses in japan. Most of these are now bankrupt. One in either Tokyo bay or Osaka bay was built on land reclaimed with landfill. The consequent and clearly neccesary smoking ban was strenuously fought by the company building it and prospective members. The need to be seen playing golf and the need to be seen to smoke were more important than the need to still be alive.it put me in mind of playing golf at Hawkstone Park in Shropshire in 1988. One time club pro at Hawkstone (Sandy Lyle) had just won the Masters at Augusta. The course was awash with Japanese would be golfers. They had come on this pilgrimage, probably bought expensive memberships, definitely bought ridiculously expensive sets of golf clubs......and couldnt hit a ball to save their lives. Looking the part was all that mattered, more important than being the part.....and the same is almost the most apt description of japanese culture in the 1980s when this book describes, the 90s and turn of the century (when my current read "demons and dogs" in searching fot my long lost read is set and still to this day. Maybe one day japan will wake up and actually try to be itself rather than a delusion of what it believes itself to be. One day it may learn something from the past, its own past....but the book gives no hope for that and it is well written and more sincere than those who claim to love the country and its society

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Waffling between a 2 or 3 star review on this one.
“Learning to Bow- and what’s wrong with Japan” would be a fair summary.
I read this because I really wanted to know more about the heart of Japanese customs. Feeler uses a lot of sarcastic type allegories and similes that seem a bit cutting, compared to Bill Bryson-esque poking fun.

Since he was a teacher, there is a fair bit of the insiders look at schools/students/education. I was hoping for more culture and history probably, and way less info on their sex lives and patterns of promiscuity. He was only there for a year, but I wanted more.

I could do entirely without the “How to Date a Japanese Girl” chapter.
One, because I don’t want to date a Japanese girl. Two, it should correctly be renamed “How to Seduce a Japanese girl” (with blanket statements about what every single female on the entire island wants/likes).
Three, I’m a homeschool mom that doesn’t want that kind of information in my library for my kids to read.
This is not a economic and cultural treatise and this is a free country- you can write what you want. But I’m also American and I’m free to not like it.

I was ready for it to be over- likely more because of his style of writing, which casts a gloomy shadow over the whole of it, than the sex-life subject matter. I won’t be keeping this book. It left me not respecting him or his character, which means I won’t be reading anything else he writes.

[Ria Bridges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bruce Feiler takes us on an insightful and often humourous look at what it’s like to teach English in a Japanese junion high school. He combines classic cultural research with his own personal experiences, giving the reader a good look inside a world that so many people both love and often misunderstand.

It isn’t just the Japanese school system that Feiler lets the reader explore in Learning to Bow. All aspects of Japanese culture are up for grabs, from dating to the proper way to eat lunch to fashion. He often makes comparisons between Japanese and American methods, drawing his own conclusions but still giving us a chance to form our own without his bias. While he may disagree with the benefits of some parts of Japanese culture, he doesn’t say, for example, that those aspects are bad. Merely that he disagrees.

I’ve read this book twice before, and still love it now as much as I did when I first opened the cover to page 1. Though Feiler’s experiences recounted in the book take place in the late 80’s, the words and story themselves have such a timeless feel that they could have been written yesterday.

Most certainly, I’d recommend this book for anyone who’s seriously interested in teaching in Japan (through the JET program, perhaps), or for those who are interested in another look into Japan’s fascinating culture.

[Yuliya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruce Feiler describes his experiences as an English teacher during his 1-year stay in Japan. This book goes deeper than providing a collection of personal anecdotes, it's actually more like a cultural study that describes, in particular, the Japanese educational system as well as some customs and cultural norms that those not native to Japan may find peculiar. I learned quite a few things, some of which were surprising, for example finding out that bullying exists in Japanese schools, or that the Americans attempted to reshape the Japanese entire educational system after the war to replace the traditional Japanese cultural values with their own. After I almost finished the book, I realized that it was written almost 30 years ago, and things may be different in modern-day Japan. Still, it was an interesting and easy-flowing book, and I appreciated that the author mostly kept to the facts and observations without inserting his own opinion too much.

[Felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Learning to Bow' is an eminently readable account of a year teaching in the Japanese state school system. The author, Bruce Feiler, clearly has a deep interest in Japan, and a great care for it. Some other reviewers have criticized his attitude but I didn't see anything wrong in it. He clearly explained where and why his views diverged from the Japanese mainstream, but I never found him to be condescending or rude.

Reading this did pique some curiosity in me to read more of Feiler's books. It is rare to find an account of anything in life that flows so freely and easily as 'Learning to Bow'. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in reading an entertaining account of an American perspective on Japanese culture.