Reviews for Unbeaten Tracks In Japan

The average rating for Unbeaten Tracks In Japan based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-03-18 00:00:00 Stacey Johnson One of my favorite travel books by this intrepid Englishwoman, traveling through the "backwoods" of Japan in 1878. Though she was an invalid when at home, she rode horseback through wild country, was out in the elements during downpours that led to landslides and washed-out roads, slept on the floor, clawed her way up mountains, and generally put any one of us to shame with her ambition and her tenacity. She was not politically correct, yet she had a deep concern for the people among whom she traveled and with whom she lodged. One night, in a rural village, she gave some cough medicine to a little boy, which seemed to cure him. "By five o'clock [a.m.] nearly the whole population was assembled outside my room, with much whispering and shuffling of shoeless feet, and applications of eyes to the many holes in the paper windows. When I drew aside the shoji I was disconcerted by the painful sight which presented itself, for the people were pressing one upon another, fathers and mothers holding naked children covered with skin-disease, or with scald-head, or ringworm, daughters leading mothers nearly blind, men exhibiting painful sores, children blinking with eyes infested by flies and nearly closed with ophthalmia; and all, sick and well, in truly 'vile raiment,' lamentably dirty and swarming with vermin, the sick asking for medicine, and the well either bringing the sick or gratifying an apathetic curiosity. Sadly I told them that I did not understand their manifold 'diseases and torments,' and that, if I did, I had no stock of medicines." What an amazing, heart-breaking sight. In this book, she also describes her sojourn among the Ainu (she calls them Aino), the aborigines of Japan. She took extensive notes on their language, religion, family life, and social organization. Fascinating.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-04-01 00:00:00 Derek Winans While the content was interesting, I found the narrator so annoying that it really took away from the experience from me. Isabella Bird was one of those "invalids" who enjoy poor health--they can't be expected to lead a normal productive life at home because they are "delicate"--and yet she could travel all over the world in very primitive conditions.The Sandwich Islands (Hawaii to you and me) Persia and Kurdistan, Morroco, Korea, China, etc. It wasn't confined to the 19th century, either; I know a few people like that today, who suffer from mysterious illnesses (cause and cure unknown) that keep them from holding a job or doing housework or being responsible for their kids...but their disabilities don't seem to stop them going camping in the rough, or travelling, or spending the day shopping all over town--or basically doing whatever they really want to do! Everything is seen through the filter of her innate attitudes of superiority...to a country to which she went voluntarily, with no one's coercion! No one asks her to go anywhere, but whenever she shows up in a town she expects there to be accomodation, comfort and food to her taste. She fixates on the dirty children, the "straw coloured, bitter" tea (no milk and sugar!) and the food--so different to her English tastes. It never occurs to her that no one asked her to go there. She also seems to forget that those living in poverty in English cities were living in worse squalor than the Japanese version. (After all, the Japanese already had the bathhouse culture firmly in place a few centuries before Miss Bird set foot there.) To enjoy this book you have to be able to sift the wheat from the chaff...I was fascinated by the idea of straw slippers for horses instead of horseshoes, and paper for rain wear! I must see if I can find a less biased author, to discover more about life in Japan in those years. I realise that yes, she was a product of her time and place in imperialist England. Yes, I got this book for free from Gutenberg, and no one forced me to read it, either. Which is why I didn't finish it; it was starting to take forever. I don't think I'll bother with any of her other adventures.