Learning to Bow. - book reviews

As an American invited to teach in the Japanese secondary schools for a year, Bruce Feiler is torn between respect and aversion for the system. Learning To Bow is a book of interconnected essays that takes you from a laser-tech wedding to the crowded slopes of Mt. Fuji. Feiler transcends the fumbling gaijin stereotype, developing an intimacy with his students, administrators and friends, that he shares eloquently with us. With the addition of colorful historical perspective, this book becomes both a lesson and a holiday.

The crowd hushed. The master of ceremonies announced into his microphone, "This is the climax." The bride and groom brought down the knife together with all the ardor of an aspiring samurai, and suddenly the stage began to rotate, the cake began to shake, and pink smoke came billowing out from beneath the lowest tier. As the tape-recorded violins soared to the crescendo of "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing," white spotlights drowned the stage and the entire platform began to rise on the shoulders of three hydraulic beams, like a UFO taking flight. I held my breath, thinking for a moment that the cake was going to lift into the air on a web of red and white laser beams. Yet the crowd could contain itself no longer. Roaring their approval, the guests jumped to their feet in riotous applause and swarmed the swiveling cake with an arsenal of flashbulbs and dessert forks. So much for the myth that Japan is a land of understated elegance.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Point Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group