Volume 32, Number 12 · July 18, 1985
O So Uchi!
By Ian Buruma
Pictures from the Water Trade: Adventures of a Westerner in Japan
by John David Morley
Atlantic Monthly Press, 259 pp., $16.95
Japan often has a curious effect on foreigners. It is said that Arthur Koestler would get so annoyed with obsequious waiters that he would pour a glass of water down their necks. George Bernard Shaw absolutely refused to take his shoes off when entering Japanese houses. Others, usually of a more romantic disposition, become what the French call 'tatamisé,' donning kimonos and even Japanizing their names: Lafcadio Hearn, a Greek-American writer best known for his Japanese ghost tales, was the most famous example of this type—his Japanese name was Koizumi Yakumo.
Review, 2394 words
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