Rebecca Otowa

Today's entry is a quick re-rec from the past, since it fits in with the theme of "Outsiders in Japan": awhile back, I recced At Home in Japan: A Foreign Woman's Journey of Discovery by Rebecca Otowa, which describes Otowa's life after she married a Japanese man and moved into his family home in a rural town. It's also a love letter to the house that Otowa became the caretaker of, and she writes about it with great love and respect, as if it were a living being. When I was writing about Yokohoma Yankee yesterday, the issue of a childless couple adopting a relative's child reminded me of Otowa's book, because she briefly mentions (I think it was) an aunt of her husband's who was sent out as a child to be adopted into a relative's family. They lived close enough to her biological family that she continued to have contact with her former siblings-turned-cousins, but being sent away from home was difficult and painful for her, although Otowa doesn't go into detail about the aunt's story.

It really is a wonderful book and well worth a re-read even if you've already read it. Otowa has also since then published a children's book called My Awesome Japan Adventure: A Diary about the Best 4 Months Ever! It's about a fifth-grade American boy who goes to Japan as an exchange student and writes about his adventures there: learning about Japanese food and customs, and getting to do fun things like visiting a ninja village or learning Aikido. With lots of bright, colorful pictures it's a fun read even for an adult, although I was already aware of most of the facts that the narrator was sharing.