The Old Sow in the Back Room: An Englishwoman in Japan - Hardcover

Sergeant, Harriet

3.06

17 ratings by Goodreads

9780719551734: The Old Sow in the Back Room: An Englishwoman in Japan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719551730 ISBN 13: 9780719551734

Publisher: Trafalgar Square, 1995

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The Japanese manufacture myths as efficiently as they do televisions, and are as adept at selling them to men who visit their country. Since it is men who write most books on Japan, those myths are perpetuated in the West. Women, though, do not count in that most foreign of countries, and no one is interested in selling myths to them. Harriet Sergeant, who lived in Tokyo for six years, took advantage of this to slip behind the scenery. In this book she provides a glimpse of backstage Japan. From her early collision with a sumo wrestler in a public swimming bath, Harriet confronts Japan head on, to the mixed consternation and amusement of her Japanese friends. They show her the country as it really is, frequently as unpalatable as dried octopus, but yielding some unforgettable experiences - and acquaintances. There is Yuno, the professional gambler, who introduces Harriet to the gangster underworld with its labyrinthine tentacles of power; the old people of the Kobokan Community Centre, some of whom can remember vividly the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923; the beer-swilling Buddhist priest with an unorthodox taste in bathroom furniture; and Midori, the troubled young woman caught between East and West.

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From Booklist:

The enticing title of this memoir of life in Japan is a translation of the Japanese term zashiki buta. The old sow in the back room is none other than a wife and mother. Sergeant emerged after six years in Tokyo's "back rooms" with a woman's-eye view of a culture so alien to a Westerner that she could not judge it, but merely accept it as "just different." Sergeant's elegant, emotional portrayal of her experiences includes visits to public baths, a transvestite bar, the Kobokan senior center, a nursery school, a Buddhist temple, and the closet-size apartments of "salary men." She acquired enough skill in the language to converse with gangsters, docile housewives, and a Buddhist priest who had inherited his family's "temple" business. Sergeant admits she was stunned equally by Japanese rudeness and kindness and returned to England, "beginning to understand exactly how much happiness it cost to produce such a happy society." This is a fascinating, intimate look at the reality behind the mythical Japanese culture. Patricia Hassler

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