Shalom, Japan: A Sabra's Five Years in the Land of the Rising Sun

by Horn Shifra and Shifra Horn

Book Overview

When Shifra Horn traveled across the world from her native Israel to join her diplomat husband in Japan for a five-year stay, East met West in remarkable and often humorous ways. Writing with warmth,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157566223X
• ISBN13: 9781575662237
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
• Length: 313 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Informative, funny, a great read!

Shalom Japan is a great read. It gives an Israeli woman's perspective in adjusting to life in Japan where she is sent with her husband and young son for a five year assignment. What two cultures could be farther apart than Israel and Japan???!!!!!!!!! The book has a wonderful conversational style, with hilarious anectodotes, and shows the sharp observational skills that Shifra Horn has honed in her other two novels. Other reviewers have felt that this book did not give a fully accurate portrait of Japan and the Japanese. For someone with a lot of background in the Japanese culture and history, this might be the case. However, for an average American with little to no knowlege of Japan and her people, this book provides a brilliant window for insights into an often strange and alternate universe. Of course, many of the customs and traditions we have here in the US look bizarre to people of other cultures. The unique perspective of a woman coming from the vastly divergent culture of modern Israeli society and being thrust into Japanese society provides an interesting and riveting perspective. I love Shifra Horn's novels. She has a beautiful way of spinning stories with characters who seem so real that readers often assume that the characters really existed in Israeli history. She is a skilled writer with a great sense of humor and I am always sad when her novels come to an end. This book is non-fiction, and gives us a taste of what is like to be an outsider trying to figure out Japanse customs which often seem puzzling to our Western way of thinking. The book is not meant to be everything to everybody, and does not tell people already familiar with Japanese culture anything they don't already know. However, anyone who had to make a similar adjustment will smile when they recognize their own past faux pas, as the book relates the authors'. I love her writing, and reading this journal is sort of like getting a letter from an old, dear, friend. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Japan, travel to foreign places, or just loves to read a skilled writer. PS- even though my surname is the same as the author's we are not related- I promise- this is not her mother talking!

A nice enough read

Hello! I am the translator of this book and the reviewer is right, I am not familiar with the Japanese language; it woudl be nice if I were, but not really essential, since I translate from Hebrew to English. I transliterated the Japanese words from Hebrew and the author - who claims a deep and expert knowledge of all things Japanese - corrected them into what she assured me was the correct, phonetic English spelling. My sincere apologies for any offence caused.

A very amusing tale of Japan...

Ms. Horn has spent 5 years in Japan, and relates her personal experiences there. Her personal point of view is very evident in the book - as a vegetarian, she describes a very special meals friends had invited her to, and as a pet lover, she describes the Japaneses' treatments of animals. This personal point of view can be a great bonus, but on the other hand has its drawbacks for those who are looking for a more accurate story about Japan. I really enjoyed this personalized point of view, since I'm Israeli and could easily see what Ms. Horn thought was funny, strange or disturbing. Someone who is not fimiliar with the Israeli attitude towards things might not have this full understanding of the author's point of view.

Glimpses of Japan

I just finished reading this book, Shalom, Japan, and I must say that I was fascinated. Although I agree with the previous reviewer that there is not much in the way of in-depth analysis of the Japanese culture as a whole, I don't believe that the author intended to attempt such a feat. Horn basically has filled the book with little vignettes of her experiences and encounters while in Japan, and she is a very good storyteller. She covers everything,for example:super toilets that can tell you if you're pregnant, red-light districts, garbage collection systems, her experiences teaching the Hebrew language to the Japanese,the onsen (communal Japanese baths), and trying to accomodate Japanese food to her vegeterian way of life. There are also some stories about Jews living in Japan during WWII. There are a few passages which may come across to some as generalized statements about the Japanese people as a whole, but in retrospect, her observations are lighthearted and reflect the thoughts that entered her mind at the time. At no time does she ever condemn the Japanese. In fact, she makes it quite clear that she highly respects the Japanese people and tries diligently to understand their way of life. As an Asian American who has visited Tokyo several times, I enjoyed this book tremendously. It brought back many memories and also allowed me to experience Japan through the eyes of an Israeli. Please give this book a chance. Even though it will not win any prizes for deep comparative anthropologic analysis, it was genuine, fun, and thought provoking. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in Japan or the Jewish experience in Asia.

GREAT BOOK

WHAT A GOOD BOOK! A REAL INSIGHT INTO JAPAN!!