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And the first people Japan was to see outside of itself (and China) were white men. Regardless of how you see it, you cannot deny that the first people to see Japan and the Japanese were white men. The man responsible for opening up Japan was Commodore Mathew Perry from the US, and he arrive with his flock of boats to push the nation into doing trade with the rest of the world. So it wasn’t until 1853 (probably the height of colonialism, mind you) that Japan entered the rest of the world. The only exception to this isolation were the Dutch merchant ships, and they too were only allowed to trade at the port in Nagasaki to prevent their culture from spreading too much. Japan has been isolated and secluded from the rest of the world by way of its Island remoteness and cultural seclusion. Most countries that are not European nor North American are misunderstood, and they have been for centuries. It is something he discusses in the introduction and the section on Japan’s history, and it’s a big culture shock. One very important thing that Pilling brings up in this book that I’ve never encountered in any other nonfiction book (but it got me wondering why), is the idea of Westernization. Japan is a country of good soldiers but poor commanders.” Japan, it turned out, was a nation of strong individuals and a weak state. “A country we often think of as strong collectively but weak individually had shown itself to be the exact reverse. He uses the explosion as the starting point to go into a nation that has continuously picked itself up from the ground to the point where the act has become a sort of art. Pilling’s book circulates around the Fukushima Explosion, so it’s pretty recent. Regardless of whether you branch off into other books or veer away, you’ll leave this book with a better understanding of a nation that has been secluded for a long time. It’s a good starting point because it creates a sturdy foundation of knowledge in an easily understandable way. In fact, I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to understand Japan better. And I think that does a good job of presenting Japan in a well-rounded way. There are moments where even Pilling gets uncomfortable with what is being told to him, but he knows that he has to provide both sides of the coin, otherwise you have no argument. He stated in his book that he will continuously provide both sides of the argument regardless of topic– and we go into some pretty hefty topics. Pilling remains unbiased throughout the entire book.
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David Pilling does something new, something I think all books discussing country and culture, should do. Either the book ridiculously admires Japan or ridiculously admonishes it. I’ve noticed that authors either take one side over the other. This is especially true in books dealing with Japan.
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There is always this fear of whether the author will do a good job in discussing the culture of the country without bias seeping in. There is always a bit of hesitancy when picking up a book about a country/culture that the author is not native to. But this is a very natural thing, a very healthy thing. We are lost and we don’t know which way we should go. “Most Japanese don’t have any sense of direction.