Japanland

This is the latest book that I finished, and I really really enjoyed it. Beth recommended this one - its from her stock (Rodale) and it was the first book in awhile that I couldn't put down.

Karin Muller is thirty-four, unmarried, and seeking the meaning of life. She goes to Japan and moves in with a host family who live about an hour from Tokyo. The book details her travels and adventures, but it is the differences between this eastern and our western culture that are really interesting. Japan is all about tradition - America - in many ways is not. Fascinating - Japanese women can work, but their working is really supposed to be a way to meet a prospective husband. They earn a salary but their fathers still pay for their expenses, and every penny of what their earn is theirs to spend. Their jobs fire them when they are thirty because they are supposed to be married by then, and if a woman marries before then, she can say good-bye to her job anyway.

This book is amusing, interesting, sad and thought-provoking all at once - and I really enjoyed following Muller around in her travels.