Getting Genki in Japan : The Adventures and Misadventures of an American Family in Tokyo by Karen Pond (Tuttle)
Karen Pond and her family, which includes a husband and three sons, pack their belongings for an impending move because the father has accepted a new position in his company. However, the family is not moving across town or to another state. No, they are moving to one of the world’s largest cities located in a foreign country. They are moving to Tokyo, Japan. A city as different as night and day compared to their coastal hometown in Maine
Pond may sound a bit flustered and out of her element in her delightful book Getting Genki in Japan, a collection of articles which were previously published in INTOUCH, a monthly magazine of the Tokyo American Club, and also published in Tokyo Families Magazine. The stories are full of humor and include beautiful illustrations by Akiko Saito.
Pond is baffled by the high-tech washlets she finds in the bathroom of a department store. She learns to leave her inhibitions at the door when she has her first hot spring experience. She waltzes out of a bathroom still wearing the toilet slippers. She uses gestures at a pharmacy to get medicine for a stomach ache for her husband and feels triumphant when the pharmacist says, “Wakarimashita” (I understand). However, she didn’t bring her husband home antacid medicine. She bought her husband a pregnancy test!
At a company dinner, Pond mistakes edamame (green soybeans) for a peapod and eats the whole pod instead of squeezing out the beans. One of her husband’s colleagues says to her, “We are curious about something. In Japan, we squeeze the edamame bean into the mouth like this. We would never eat the whole bean. It is very fascinating that in your culture you eat the whole bean.” In order to spare herself from embarrassment, she responds by saying, “This is exactly how I eat edamame in my area of the States. It’s tradition, really. It is good for the character. Mmmmmmm….”
Of course the biggest difficulty she must overcome is the language barrier. Some of her language follies include introducing her husband as her shuujin which translates to “prisoner”, the proper word being shujin. Or telling a Japanese mother that her child is kowai (scary) instead of kawaii (cute). She doesn’t realize that irashaimasse means “welcome” and not “please take off your shoes''. The language barrier rears its ugly head again when Pond orders cocoa using the English pronunciation of “koko” which means “here” instead of “ko-ko-aah” as it’s pronounced in Japanese.
As an expat living in Japan myself, I can relate to many of the situations Pond finds herself in. I once ate soramame (broad bean), skin and all before my friend told me I am supposed to squeeze out the bean inside. Many of her stories made me laugh out loud. Some of her anecdotes may be exaggerated for maximum humorous effect and at times her lack of common sense borders on the unbelievable. However, the book is light-hearted and easy to read and is an entertaining romp that will appeal to foreign residents and first-time visitors to Japan alike. ようこうそ日本へ！Welcome to Japan! ~Ernie Hoyt