At Home in Japan: A Foreign Woman's Journey of Discovery

by Rebecca Otowa

"This portrait of Japanese country life reminds us that at its core, a happy and healthy life is based on the bonds of food, family, tradition, community, and the richness of nature" —John Einarsen, Founding Editor and Art Director of Kyoto Journal

What would it be like to move to Japan, leaving everyone you know behind, to become part of a traditional Japanese household? At Home in Japan tells an extraordinary true story of a foreign woman who goes through an amazing transformation, as she makes a move from a suburban lifestyle in California to a new life, living in Japan. She dedicates 30 years of her life as a housewife, custodian and chatelaine of a 350–year–old farmhouse in rural Japan.

This astonishing book traces a circular path from were Rebecca began, to living under Japanese customs, from the basic day to day details of life in the house and village, through relationships with family, neighbors and the natural and supernatural entities with which the family shares the house. Rebecca Otowa then focuses on her inner life, touching on some of the pivotal memories of her time in Japan, the lessons in perception that Japan has taught her and the ways in which she has been changed by living in Japan.

An insightful and compelling read, At Home in Japan is a beautifully written and illustrated reminiscence of a once simple life made extraordinary.

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

176 pages, Hardcover

First published May 10, 2010

About the author

Rebecca Otowa has been the chatelaine of a 350-year-old farmhouse in rural Japan. She left her original home in California in 1967, and her adopted home of Australia in 1978, to strike out in a radically new life direction. She and her husband Toshiro have raised two sons and now live in a rural village near Kyoto, in a farmhouse that has been in the family since it was built in the 1600s. As well as writing and teaching English, Rebecca loves growing vegetable and roses, reading (with one of her four cats pm her lap), sewing, cooking and voraciously watching English-language movies. Her social life is divided between local volunteer groups and "the stage" - music, amateur theatricals and country line dancing. Her happiest days are when her sons return home with their families and everyone is together again.

Reviews

[Kate♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5stars

A collection of very short little essays along with beautiful drawings and photographs. I loved learning about rural Japan and this would be a great place to start for anyone who knows nothing about Japanese life or culture. Unfortunately, I do wish the essays were longer and more fleshed out, as well as they felt very randomly thrown together - there was no cohesion between them.

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the most delightful book. A charming time slip, I kept having to look back at the publishing date because I couldn’t believe it was published in 2010! It had such a wonderful old fashion quality, from the hand drawn illustrations and beautiful photographs to the meandering style. Having lived in Japan for 25 years, I felt so nostalgic reading this and really enjoyed the details about life in the countryside.

It was more than anything the celebration of a house... in some distant way like Downton Abbey since the focus was on the lifespan of the house not the people living in it. Evelyn Waugh wrote of the virtue of tending a home and caring for the people in the home, and I really felt that reading this. Or to quote the founding editor of Kyoto Journal: “This intimate portrait of Japanese country life reminds us that had its core, a happy and healthy life is based on the bonds of food, family, tradition, community, and the richness of nature."

Tuttle is one of my favorite publishers and they did such a great job with this book--from the cover and paper type to the multitude of illustrations!

[AnHeC the Paperback Obliterator · Rating 3 out of 5]

word count: 60 000 (only? or is my maths that much off?)

rating: in high doses results in overwhelming feelings of 'meh'



This book was OK. Just fine. Nothing exceedingly good or exceptionally bad about it. Don't get me wrong, I did have some fun with it, but only some.

It was a Christmas gift, so I promptly proceeded to read it. That was a mistake. First 60 pages (out of the whooping 187) enthralled me. I should have stopped then. The book is divided into ultra short (2-3 page long) chapters. Nice, small, digestible bits. Read one or two a day and it'll be fun. Read more, and you'll want to bang your head against the wall.

Why? Because it has no structure. It's just a collection of observations. No typical, chronological narrative. On one hand it makes it 'fun' and 'fresh', but for me it killed any chance of this book having a 'flow'. It's monotone. There are no distinguishable features of the numerous chapters.


In short:

- no flow

- the author doesn't analyse things in depth (we hear just a few superficial details about any given thing, and then she moves on)

- too little facts, too much of the pseudo philosophical musings of the author (I almost DNF-ed at the last 7 pages)

- only a few anecdotes

- language – average, narrative has no captivating qualities, it's just grammatically correct (which in this day and age can be sometimes considered a great feat, but not by me, not yet)



So what’s my conclusion? This book is merely ok. I know a bit about Japan, so I got what the author was talking about. Would it be as understandable to others? Or maybe this is what made the book more boring for me? The lack of novelty could have killed some of my fun.


If you buy it, my advice is: don’t read it in one go, but slowly, and over an extended period of time. This way it can make a fairly pleasant read.

[Amanda Setasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect of this book, and I loved absolutely everything about it.
While it's a little lacking in details, the ones that exist do not disappoint.

It's hard to find books about Japanese society as a whole and traditions in general.
This is an account of a foreigner that moved to Japan with her Japanese husband and about their day to day life and certain events.

It was really eye opening and honestly will probably be a book I look forward to buying in the future.

[RavensScar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always liked Japan and the Japanese culture. It's fascinating how tradition and modern life can blend so well. I like that the japanese are so polite and that they care so deeply for family and education.

If you plan to travel to Japan or move to Japan. You should probably travel there first before you decide to move there ;) Then this is the book you should read. It explains typical Japanese things so that foreigners can understand it.

[Liane Wakabayashi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I read At Home in Japan before meeting Rebecca Otowa, as it stirred in me both admiration and a desire to get to know the author whose slow, chilled, pastoral, earthy life in the countryside was the opposite of what I was experiencing in hyper-consumerist, wildly stimulating and oftentimes exhausting Tokyo. Yet I saw parallels. I was moved by Otowa’s life choices--not easy--and even the impulse to document and illustrate aspects of a house as if Home were the central family member. Every foreign wife I’ve met in Japan wrestles with this issue of nesting and making roots on their husband’s turf. Otowa does this admirably, and interestingly with a husband who would have been just as happy to live the city life far from the home and the burden of duty that consumes first-born sons who inherit property saturated with the memories, if not the ghosts, of their ancestors.

It was a very interesting and well-justified angle to take from the Renaissance woman that Rebecca Otowa is --well cultured, creative, innovative, connected to people she resonates with. And yet, ready to adapt to all outward appearances the humble countenance and roll up your sleeves involvement of a country wife in Japan. The overarching theme that Otowa tackles in At Home in Japan, is that "paradise" is what we make of our choices.

It’s an acknowledgment and celebration of the home and land we manifest out of our own willingness to take risks, to step outside our comfort zone, and reimagine ourselves on a very different stage set of life than the one we were raised in. It's so clear that Otowa married the house when she married her adoring husband, and she was more than okay with that, despite the difficult, traditional mother-in-law, who passed away pretty early on into her married life in Shiga, leaving Rebecca to take over in her own gentle and appreciative way. Not that it was easy.

I never felt that the author desired to "escape" from life in the Shiga countryside, and that too makes Otowa stand out as a strong and resilient woman, not shy of labels that define her as a foreign wife in Japan, a musician, artist, writer, and mother, determined to be master and victor over circumstances.

[Wendy Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought out this book after reading a number of memoirs/books written from the male gaijin perspective, and really feeling the need to get a different view. Otowa's experience is quite particular as the foreign wife to the heir of a house lived in by 16 generations of his family. The book is a series of essays on a range of topics, written in a style that while not austere, felt more muted. Overall, interesting and enjoyable.

[Lauren Tivnan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was given to me by the leader of my Japan trip. It bothered me actually. Very dated; written in the 80s by a woman who gave up get entire existence to marry and live in Japan. Many of the Japanese customs (like the wife of the house bathing last everyone else in the same bath water and then having to clean the bathroom) would not have been ok with me. At all. The book was also very disjointed in terms of the topics the author chose to write about.

[Books on Asia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most beautiful, eloquently written book on traditional Japan I've ever read. And while this traditional Japanese lifestyle is changing, you can still find it in the countryside today. Otowa values Japanese beauty and arts and she infuses her prose with this appreciation. I hope she writes more like this because she truly has a gift for writing.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm sad to have finished this. It felt like sitting, talking with a good friend who knows the country and the culture as only a gaijin allowed into the inner chambers could. Beautiful, personal.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

Making slow progress through this unexciting but somewhat ineresting book. Been working on it since January 2012; will finish it eventually.

2017: Will never finish this book.

[pati · Rating 4 out of 5]

L

[Ria Bridges · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to rate this book higher, I really did. Really, it doesn’t have any faults or flaws that I can point out as such, at least not that can leigitmately extend beyond the matter of personal taste. I found the prose a bit dry at home, but stylistically, that isn’t enough to condemn a book entirely.

It took me longer than it ought to have to get through this book, and I think ultimately the reason lies in the fact that it wasn’t what I was expecting. From the description online, I had expected something written in the style of a person’s memoirs, details of their life in a different culture. What I got instead was a collection of short articles.

Now, this is where opinions can easily differ. Reading short articles or stories can make a book easy to get through for some, because each section requires only a small amount of committment. For others, such as myself, constantly stopping and started makes me feel disjointed, thrown out of the groove, and I find myself quick to put the book down quite often. It drags out the reading time, and makes the book seem longer and more tedious than perhaps it really was.

It did, I will admit, have some interesting information on Japanese culture, history, and language, and for that, I’m glad I bought it. It’s rare now that I come across a book written about Japan that contains information that I haven’t read a hundred times elsewhere. This book accomplished what few others have in that it presented new information to me, which I greatly enjoyed absorbing.

I can’t say I’d recommend this book to many people. If you enjoy your information coming at you in the form of articles, then by all means, pick up a copy. If you simply must have any and all books on Japanese life and culture, then order it from Amazon. But otherwise, I’d say that most people can give this book a miss without losing out on too much.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the structure of the book. It is a memoir of sort, but written in short passages of a particular subject matter. The subject matter could be as tangible as the kimono, but could also be intagible as the concept of mono no aware. It could also be the writer's direct observations, but also her reflections, which sometimes are told from the third person perspective (e.g "The House Speaks").

I like how Rebecca-san, being the woman who runs a traditional farmhouse in rural Kyoto, imparts on intimate aspects of Japanese life and household which are inaccessible to almost all of us mere Japan lovers.

But somehow, I feel that most of her writings are restrained and lacked depth. Maybe it's the structure of the book that does not permit, or maybe, after 30 plus years of immersing herself in her adopted country, she, as she herself claimed, has found the balance of providing us the glimpse of the soulf of the people, while fiercely guarding its privacy.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this book; I tried, I really did, but I just kept putting-it off, and finally, read it until I could say that I had finished it. I found that most of the book was the author talking about the various traditions of Japan, with many of them being described in elaborate language, which lost me throughout many points of the book. I found that the illustrations were nice, and was impressed by the eloquence of the writing style from time-to-time. However, I guess I was hoping for more of the author's impressions on her life in Japan, not how certain things are structured, or why the Japanese are more prone to do this over that. The little that was included of the author's life experiences kept me entertained for a short period, then left me wanting more once it was cut-off abruptly.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked mostly the first half of this book, which started with how the US/Australian-raised author happen to marry a Japanese man and then led into Japanese culture and how the author adapted to it. It's also about the old house passed along through family generations. I loved the color photos and the lovely drawings by the talented author. This is not exactly memoir, seems more like essays, especially the later chapters of philosophizing. I wanted to know a lot more indepth, real life stories, including about her children's experiences growing up as half Japanese.

[Annemijn van der Meijden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read such beautiful descriptive writing. It felt like I was experiencing everything the author described. I think that the main thing that this book taught me while reading is that patience is one of the most important things in life, and that you should appreciate the little things, from the rustling of the leaves to the singing of all the different birds in the different periods of the year. Somehow, reading this book felt like peace.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was really interesting to read these little vignettes on an outsider's impression of Japan. Especially, since she comes in as Japan becomes more westernized. The author is more traditional than other women her age as she tries to fit in with her new family. I love how she finds a balance between her western sensibilities and the traditional way.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was shelved in the memoir section of the library. However, the author doesn't spend much of the book talking about herself. Instead it is a collection of essays on life in a rural Japanese village. It is a good read for those who are seeking to learn more about Japanese culture. But it falls short in terms of a memoir.

[Megi wants to live in a Library. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quaint, intimate view of rural Japanese life from a foreigner's retrospective. I enjoyed the small ink-wash images and short chapters. As it is written by an "Oba-chan," the author does come across as formal or nostalgic at times. I had expected a more chronological narrative style, but the book being what it is - is enjoyable just the same.

[Skrzat_ksiazkowy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.25/5 ⭐
Z książki można się dowiedzieć ciekawych rzeczy na temat tradycji w Japońskim domu i z takim nastawieniem sięgnęłam po tę pozycję. Dużo jest też z życia autorki. Niektóre historie są ciekawe, ale niektóry nie wnoszą nic związanego z Japonią. Książka jest w porządku, ale oczekiwałam czegoś lepszego.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some unknown reason I set this down after starting it and didn't pick it up again for several months. When at last I began again I was completely captivated and read it in an afternoon. Lovely description of Japan from an expat who married a Japanese man. I want to share it with friends in Japan and see how it compares to their own experiences. Very enjoyable.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was lovely and wonderful. A real intimate look into the authors life and her journey through life in Japan. Every chapter is different and reads like a cultural exploration with hints of a memoir sprinkled on top. It was sublime.

[Jane G Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A small glimpse into every day life in rural Japan by an American/Australian expat. Quick, easy read. Each chapter is its own little world... Somehow the book lacked depth, or an underlying theme besides something as inert as the actual house...

I learned things, but wasn't inspired.

[Joe Palermo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very deep description of Japanese culture and customs by a non-Japanese that has lived most of her life in Japan. Having lived in Japan for eight years myself, I really appreciated her wealth of knowledge and insights into Japanese culture.

[Taina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tunnelmallisia, paikoin tylsiä kirjoituksia Japaniin sopeutumisesta 1980-luvusta alkaen.

[Stephanie Barth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more of a collection of short essays and does not go into much detail but still it was very insightful and enjoyable.

[James Boosey · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

[Weronika · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Andrew Innes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. A lovely look into rural life in Japan.