‘Kickboxing Geishas’ …well yes and no
Geisha grrrls
Jan. 17, 2007, Salon.com —-The American media loves Japanese women, especially when they’re dressed in kimonos or school uniforms, or covered head to toe in brand names. But according to Veronica Chambers, a journalist, a novelist and the author of “Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Japanese Women Are Changing Their Nation,” those stylish stereotypes distract us from the real story…
…Chambers first sensed the tremors of revolution when she visited Japan on a media fellowship in 2000…she spent three years…..I started going to the newsstand and picking up magazines and newspapers that looked like they had profiles or stories about women. I’d come back to the U.S., pay to get these articles translated, then fax the translations [about] women who seemed interesting to the Japan Society, with requests…. I’d usually bring a translator with me on interviews…….more…
Saaaa, as they say in Japanese. The “news” that Japanese women are not demure geisha-like creatures has been reported and told in the West for decades. But, somehow Salon.com and the author think this is news. I wish I had 10 yen for every newbie reporter “steps off the plane at Tokyo-Nartia airport and writes a gripping expose’ on square watermelons and the “new” Japanese woman.
Right off the top, the title of the book should be “K1 Geishas” or some Japanese sport less Thai than kickboxing.
More grating is that this author is by her own admission disconnected, deaf, dumb, and illiterate. That is, she needed translations, interpreters, and introductions by the 金魚のフン Japan Society to create her book. Sheesh, who would believe a book of social commentary from somebody who only visited the States or England for three years and who needed translations and interpreters for everything?
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January 17th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
This is very interesting! In certain sense, I agree with the fact that American perception of Japan is quite out of date, and we choose to see what we expect and want to see about Japan. In the mean time, I can’t believe that the author has never visited Japan. Then BS is the word for her.
January 17th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
@Dilys
It says in the article that the author “first sensed the tremors of revolution when she visited Japan on a media fellowship in 2000″
@Book
Seeing that the author is a black female just makes me wonder if this is her “minority struggle.” That she will somehow get credit for exposing America to this “brand-new movement.”
There’s a reason why this seems new in America and it stems from a lack of understanding the culture. The end of the synopsis in the article says, about the women the author interviewed, “they didn’t think their stories were worth sharing with each other — or with nosy journalists.”
Bingo!
@Taro
Good review. I agree that the quality of this book is probably crappy if she’s had limited access to the country; however, there are some pretty interesting books about space from people who have never been there.
If it’s any consolation, Amazon users have given it the tag of “crap” which is in second-place, after “japan.”
January 17th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
@myself
Errr… I didn’t read the Amazon title well enough, SIMILAR products were tagged with “crap.” Oops.
January 17th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
All I can say, is that I have only read a 20-page sample of the book. It’s well-written, covers the topic, but lacks insight as would be expected for “in depth” interviews in translation.
Bottom Line: She must have enjoyed a nice junket/media fellowship for 3 years.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
UPDATE: I just read that Simon & Schuster has chapter one of “Kickboxing Geishas” online for free but oddly the book does not come up in the publishers database (I now see it .
Morning-after, next-day thoughts and update
Ok, I recant, sort of.
I do agree with the opening line of the book:
When I was the same age as when the author, Chambers, said that, I was a student living in Saint-Germain, a few steps from St. Michel station of the Metro—mo’ betta’ than here in the Concrete Buttplug(tm).
It turns out she also lived in Tokyo’s International House (a Rockefeller Foundation lodging, club and library), so I guess we have met –blush– socially a few times. Still, the book reads like more like a backpackers tale, abet a well written one.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Try ths link:
http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=523897&agid=2
I got this from writers blog at:
http://www.veronicachambers.com/blog.html
January 18th, 2007 at 10:04 am
There’s a comment on Blogger today that says in tangential reply to my comments above that:
“Why is it so that Americans write about Japanese and or Europeans write about Asians and no vice versa, exception notwithstanding? Don’t they say that Hen knows better about Eggs.”
Gee, as far as, “Don’t they say that Hen knows better about Eggs.”… Well, the Japanese do write plenty of Lost-in-Translation stories in Japanese about Europe and America, but nothing much is translated into English because it’s so ordinary and banal ( like “Kickboxing’).
Actually yesterday I was having dinner with lady “bucho” (vice-president) of a Tokyo publishing house and she complained to me that there’s a whole genre of Japanese novels in the Banana Yoshimoto theme of Yellow-Cabs-and-Black-Bad-Boys that’s “shocking” to the Japanese mind but is like every Saturday night after a payday on the Southside of Chicago. These monolingually-written Japanese stories are just too boring to read in translation.
* イエローキャブ (いえろーきゃぶ/ ieroo kyabu) young Japanese women obsessed with having sex with foreigners (from “yellow cab,” because they take anyone for a “ride”)
Also note: Sorry, but the 3Yen’s “Comments” function may not working well today.