English language publishers, please please translate this series. It’s a masterpiece, even after all these decades. Japanese books are all the rage. So why not?
I love Hong Kong, but so far my favorite is this chapter (India, and a bit of Nepal). Sawaki gets asked at a restaurant why he was eating with his hand (unlike other foreign travelers). “Because I’m in India” he answers. This is his whole attitude toward traveling / life. He writes that being able to eat with his fingers, being able to use his hand and water in the toilet, learning these small things one by one make him feel liberated from the life and customs he was trapped in. I love that he focuses his travelogue on his emotional growth based on each little experiences, rather than what he saw, did, etc.