Too Late for the Festival: An American Salary Woman in Japan

by Rhiannon Paine

Rhiannon Paine, a technical writer for Hewlett-Packard in Silicon Valley, agreed reluctantly to transfer to their Tokyo branch. She had no idea what she was in for, and neither did her Japanese colleagues. While they coped with her social gaffes, like arriving late to work and blowing her nose in public, Paine struggled with Japanese food––"deviant sea-creatures on rice"––and with the Japanese language, which kept tripping her up with new verb tenses.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Japan, Travel, Japanese Literature

200 pages, Hardcover

First published November 18, 1999

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

First book of the year! WHOOT!

I appreciate the candor in which Ms. Paine writes. I also appreciate her honesty when it came to how difficult it was for her to adjust to life in Japan. There are just so many things to have in mind as a foreigner, so many different ways to offend or make someone uncomfortable, that unless you studied it or read about it, you wouldn't have the faintest idea of what you did wrong. I also liked that she didn't paint a rosy colored picture of her life abroad. She put her whole experience on paper. Warts and all.

That said, the book is not terribly entertaining. I found myself dropping it in favor of other things like coloring or watching something on Netflix.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a real taste of the office culture and life of a bookworm-ish foreigner in Japan. Other than that, it's highly melancholic, sad and not what I would call a fun read so you've been warned.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read a lot of Japan centric memoirs. Paine’s collection of essays about her life in Japan circa 1985 stands out for because it was written before Japan was cool, before flocks of teens dreamed of rice balls and ramen. As a result, Paine has a refreshing “geez this place is a weird, frustrating pain in the butt” vibe you just don’t get anymore. (She also received a salary package you can’t get any more either.)

It also resonated with me because despite a 30+ year gap, our experiences followed the same story beats: initial bewilderment, overwhelming incompetence with the language, boredom at work, growing warmth as friendships are formed, enchantment, begrudging exit, the reverse culture shock no one warns you about (specifically finding grocery stores too big).

[Michael Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a longstanding interest in the culture and social structure of modern Japan, and I read a lot of contemporary Japanese authors (in translation) and also memoirs written by Westerners who have lived and worked in Japan for an extended period. Many of those have been teachers of English, which gives you a certain angle on the country, and which also usually means they speak at least a little Japanese themselves and have done some research beforehand.

Paine’s case was somewhat different. She had a degree in 19th-century lit and worked for Hewlett-Packard as a tech writer (because Trollope and Dickens will only get you so far in earning a living), and was invited to move to the company’s Tokyo office to work on the English-language documentation for a big, international software project. She knew nothing about Japan, but she had a talent for languages, so she figured it couldn’t be too difficult, right? (She was entirely wrong about that.) So off she went, living first in a hotel, then in a large flat (by Tokyo standards), and trying to fit herself into a small office group consisting of mostly Japanese employees but with an American manager.

It’s interesting to watch the author trying hard to learn about the corporate culture of Japan and how it works, and also trying to stay out of the sometimes emotional office politics -- emotional among the Americans, anyway, because the Japanese in the office were uniformly appalled by the freewheeling American approach to interpersonal relationships. But in the long run, she never does really understand what the Japanese are all about, any more than the Japanese she works with ever really understand her.

There’s also the problem that the period she’s writing about is the mid-1980s, which is now a full generation in the past. Japan has changed measurably in that time, just as the U.S. has, both technologically and economically as well as culturally. (A female employee with a graduate degree is no longer required to make tea for her male colleagues, for one thing.) That rather limits the utility of the volume for those trying to come to grips with Japan in the 21st century.

[GoldGato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Japan has always been an intriguing country, combining a deep paternalistic environment with American capitalism. For all of its emphasis on technology and closely packed humanity, it has managed to set aside forests and still maintains a spiritual core that make gifts, tea, and futons so bloody magnificent.

In trying to find a book that would allow me to peep more into Japanese culture, yet not be a basic travel brochure, this little gem somehow found its way to me (thanks to Powell's bookstore aficionados). This is a true story of an American female worker and her time spent in Japan as an employee of Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s. We get to see her view of the country while also living her daily story as a worker, which is a very refreshing change from the usual writer-with-lots-of-money/time.

The neighborhood dogs used to start barking at bedtime. They were terriers...and stunted-looking like the trees in the thin strips of garden around the houses. They couldn't grow big in Tokyo; there wasn't enough room.

Nice sense of humor and a very pleasant read that makes me want to experience some time in our sister country of quakes.

Book Season = Spring (cherry blossoms)

[Carianne Carleo-Evangelist · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first saw this book at Kinokuniya and didn't buy it because the one copy was beat up. I spent the better part of a year trying to find it again before iBooks to the rescue.

Nano-which not only would have been easier for the Japanese colleagues to pronounce, but is much easier for me to spell-spent nearly two years working for HP in Japan in the mid-late 80s. The 80s and Tokyo were a world away from the early 00s in Osaka but I saw a lot of my time in Japan in her writing: especially the communication issues and reverse culture shock. Oh and the train issues.

I liked the way Nano chronicled her time: both through the people she met and her experiences-even if they were just every day activities such as dealing with her colleagues' cigarette smoke and/or the overhead fluorescent lights. Some of the everyday challenges are just monumental when in another language.

It's impossible to go back to the Japan she visited because both countries & technology have changed so much, but this is a wonderful portrait of Japan and her time there.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I lived and worked in Japan in the 1980's so I related to this book quite well. Ms. Paine does a nice job of conveying the ups and downs and cultural confusions of functioning in Japanese business culture.

[Dr Penner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short book is recommended for Americans interested in the Japanese culture specifically in the workplace environment. This book wasn’t trivial and it wasn’t too thick--just right for a quick read before setting off for a foreign destination.