Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of JapanLearning to Bow has been heralded as one of the funniest, liveliest, and most insightful books ever written about the clash of cultures between America and Japan. With warmth and candor, Bruce Feiler recounts the year he spent as a teacher in a small rural town. Beginning with a ritual outdoor bath and culminating in an all-night trek to the top of Mt. Fuji, Feiler teaches his students about American culture, while they teach him everything from how to properly address an envelope to how to date a Japanese girl. |
Contents
| 16 | |
| 26 | |
THE WELCOME PARTY | 45 |
S THE SPORTS FESTIVAL SS 6 FALL IN THE CHESTNUT BASIN | 63 |
THE ANATOMY OF A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL UNIFORM | 75 |
MAKING HOSPITAL ROUNDS | 85 |
TRASH DAY | 98 |
ΙΟ THE LOST ART OF SCHOOL LUNCH | 109 |
THE TEACHER IN JAPAN | 167 |
THE JUKU GENERATION | 179 |
DRINKING ALONE IN RURAL JAPAN | 191 |
HOW TO PICK UP A JAPANESE GIRL | 203 |
A CHERRY BLOSSOM SPRING | 221 |
THE INVISIBLE CLASS | 238 |
THE ANNUAL SCHOOL EXCURSION | 260 |
EPILOGUE | 290 |
NEW YEARS EVE AND THE RISING SUN | 120 |
THE JAPANESE COLOR WHEEL | 131 |
TWIN WINTER ESCAPADES | 146 |
A FINAL BOW | 305 |
191 | 316 |
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Common terms and phrases
7-Eleven American asked bath Beatles beer began bowed Bruce burakumin called ceremony Cherry Blossom Chieko chopsticks classroom Denver desk door dressed drink Education Emiko English entrance exams envelope face feel finally floor foreign friends front girlfriend girls go-con graders graduation hair hands Hara head Hikaru Genji homeroom Ishikawa Japa Japan Japanese Japanese schools Japanese students juku junior high school kara-oke Kato-sensei kejime Kenzo Kimi Ga Yo kimonos kumi Kuzu learned lives looked love hotel lunch morning mother Mount Fuji mountain moved nanpa Negishi never night Nikko ninth-grade parents principal rice Sakamoto-sensei samurai Sano Junior High Sato seat sensei Shinto shrine speak stopped Takuya talk tatami teach teachers thought Tochigi Tochigi Prefectural Tokyo Disneyland told took town turned wabi-sabi walked wedding week young
Popular passages
Page 75 - Beware Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in, Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice : Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Page 1 - HE drew a circle that shut me out — Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in ! EDWIN MARKHAM The Man with the Hoe Written after seeing Milled ivorld-famous painting of a brutalized toiler.
Page 146 - Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way", And merrily bent* the stile-a : A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Page 39 - ... the only way in which adults consciously control the kind of education which the immature get is by controlling the environment in which they act, and hence think and feel. We never educate directly, but indirectly by means of the environment.
Page 120 - Praise to Joy, the God-descended Daughter of Elysium! Ray of mirth and rapture blended, Goddess, to thy shrine we come. By thy magic is united What stern Custom parted wide, All mankind are brothers plighted Where thy gentle wings abide.
Page 98 - In the administration of all schools, it must be kept in mind, what is done is not for the sake of the pupils, but for the sake of the...
Page 36 - Korean school system consists of six years of elementary school, three years of junior high school, three years of senior high school, and four years of college.
Page 89 - ... or tea, and — in even greater detail — whether one wants it with sugar, and milk, and so on. I soon realized that this was only the American's way of showing politeness to his guest, but in my own mind I had a strong feeling that I couldn't care less. What a lot of trivial choices they were obliging one to make — I sometimes felt — almost as though they were doing it to reassure themselves of their own freedom.
Page 16 - He went on to explain how each totemic ancestor, while travelling through the country, was thought to have scattered a trail of words and musical notes along the line of his footprints, and how these Dreaming-tracks lay over the land as "ways" of communication between the most far-flung tribes.