Manners and customs of the Japanese, in the nineteenth century: from the accounts of Dutch residents in Japan and from the German work of Philipp Franz von Siebold Book

This is about as irritating as a book can get. Kerr majored in Japanese Studies at Yale. However, his handle on historical facts is almost non-existent, seemingly learned by watching movies, and reading 'Shogun'.

His observations are accurate, but his handle on historical facts is shaky at best, and his analysis is nearly psychotic in its disconnection from reality. An example: He talks about love for traditional ways in his dream house of Chiiori. 'Of course, getting electricity and running water and sewage' came first for his 'traditional house', blithely ignoring the fact that concrete is needed to run the power lines and poles, and lay the pipes of for the water and sewage. Apprently, he think that the infrastructure for public utilities magically appears before the houses of those who need it, rather than being a part of a necessarily invasive system. If you live in a house in Japan without sewage and without running water, you soon realize that there is nothing beautiful about the smell of feces.

This is not a book about Japan; this is a book about an American who suffers from yearning for the 'good old days' that never were, spreading that lie over a culture he simply does not understand. He does not understand the culture because he simply does not know the history. Everyone is sentimental about the past, and his mistakes that sentimentality expressed by older Japanese people for a thought that these Japanese people are powerless to stop change. He rides a Shinkansen to Kyoto, then drives his car an hour and a half to his house, only to complain about the fact that there are train tracks and roads everywhere. And he lives half the year in Thailand, flying on a plane to to get to Japan, landing in an airport whose construction he criticizes.

He needed a better copy editor to catch some of his blatant mistakes. But his factual errors, as many as they are, are actually the least worrisome part of the book. His analysis is just beyond redemption.

"The whole of Japan is a pure invention," said Oscar Wilde. This book is proof that even in the modern age this is true.