Download e-book for kindle: 36 Views of Mount Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan by Cathy N. Davidson

In 1980 Cathy N. Davidson traveled to Japan to coach English at a number one all-women’s collage. It was once the 1st of many trips and the start of a deep and abiding fascination. during this striking e-book, Davidson depicts a sequence of intimate moments and small epiphanies that jointly make up a breathtaking view of Japan. With wit, candor, and a lover’s willing eye, she tells pleasing stories—from that of a Buddhist funeral encumbered with ritual to a thrilling night spent traveling the “Floating World,” the sensual demimonde within which salaryman meets geisha and the traditional ideas are suspended. On a distant island inhabited by way of one of many final matriarchal societies on the planet, a disconcertingly down-to-earth priestess leads her to the center of a sacred grove. and he or she spends a number of unforgettable weeks in a quasi-Victorian place of dwelling known as the perform condominium, the place, till lately, eastern ladies have been taught American customs in order that they may make right better halves for husbands who may be stationed in another country. In an afterword new to this version, Davidson tells of a poignant journey again to Japan in 2005 to go to associates who had remade their lives after the good Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, which had devastated town of Kobe, in addition to the small city the place Davidson had lived and the collage the place she taught.

36 perspectives of Mount Fuji not just transforms our picture of Japan, it deals a stirring examine the very nature of tradition and identification. usually humorous, occasionally liltingly unhappy, it truly is as intimate and impossible to resist as a long-awaited letter from an excellent friend.