Japan

J is for Ten in Japan

By the time I turned ten, I had read every book about Japan in my school library and the children’s section of the city library. I was determined to travel there some day. It took 16 more years for that dream to come true. This post is one in a series of short posts includingContinue reading “J is for Ten in Japan”

Book Review: China to Me: A Partial Biography

Emily Hahn’s China to Me: A Partial Biography is precisely the type of memoir I had hoped to write 40 years later about my own life. Like Hahn, I set out to live and work in a foreign country. Hahn chose China in the middle of turbulent times when Japan was asserting control over muchContinue reading “Book Review: China to Me: A Partial Biography”

J is for Japan

“Daisho in Temple, Miyajima, Japan” (CC BY 2.0) by Imahinasyon Photography A plain wooden trunk in the basement of the house of my childhood was off limits. Its contents included my parents’ mementos from the days before we children arrived. The kewpie doll my dad won for my mom at the fair, some dish towels mom had embroideredContinue reading “J is for Japan”