ISBN: 0140036792
Godina izdanja: 1978
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

George Mikes - The Land Of The Rising Yen
Penguin, 1978
188 str.
meki povez
stanje: dobro

The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation. They are determined to be puzzling, quaint, unfathomable and inscrutable.

Everyone writes about the tea ceremony in Japan; but who, except George Mikes, notice the way rubbish is thrown out? Everyone reports his own reaction to the Japanese sense of tradition; but who else spots the reaction of the Japanese to their own sense of tradition?

Whether he is describing morals or manners, George Mikes looks at the Japanese as he looks at the rest of mankind: with his own inimitable blend of curiosity, respect, affection and irreverence.


Humility is one of the most repulsive virtues, nearly always false.
The Japanese are human beings like the rest of us, but they will strongly resent this insinuation.
The Japanese have produced a chewing gum with the flavour of sake, their rice-wine. As heartening an example of the amalgamation of two cultures as I have ever seen; a glorious feat of uniting the worst of two worlds.
At the United Nations nothing empties the debating chamber quite so fast as a Japanese delegate rising to speak, putting on his spectacles preparatory to reading a long string of clichés and platitudes.
The only positive line taken by our (Japanese) foreign policy is not to offend the United States; in sharp contrast with the now departed General de Gaulle whose only positive idea was to offend them.
We want to prevent foreigners from learning Japanese. We regard foreigners who know our language as intruders on our privacy.
Our way is the shell-fish way. The shell-fish has soft meat inside but a very hard, protective shell outside.
Once a young Japanese gets a job, he is settled for life. He has to kick his boss down the stairs to get fired.
The confusion is great and a great many people do their best to add to it.
The steering-wheel of a motor-car has the same effect on a modern, civilized man as the smell of blood has on the average tiger.
You would think they (Tokyo drivers) never touch their indicators but they do, quite often. A flickering left indicator means: I am slowing down. Or: I am accelerating. Or: I’m turning left. Or: I am turning right. Or: I forgot to switch it off. Or: you would be ill-advised to pay any attention to indicators.
It is an old joke – I heard it many times on my first visit to Tokyo – that the former suicide-torpedo pilots had become taxi-drivers but were longing to get their old jobs back because they were so much less dangerous. Or it used to be a joke: it is stark reality today.
Gifts with a red-and-white cord should be tied so that the red cord is on the right; and when using gold-and-silver cord, the gold should be on the right.’ But as time marches on, fewer and fewer people commit harakiri on realizing that they used the gold-and-silver cord with the gold on the left.
They (The Japanese) often go out of their way to be helpful. This is obvious from brief encounters in the street (they run after you to redirect you, having noticed that you took the wrong turning).
If an ambassador is a gentleman sent abroad to lie in the interest of his country, then a Foreign Ministry is a collection of gentlemen staying at home, doing the same.
Japan is, you often feel, an improved version of the United States.


Non-Fiction, Cultural, Japan