Oh, george

japan unmasked.JPG
My brother is currently attempting to get rid of and/or move around a bunch of stuff in the house, which means a lot of the kooky stuff my packrat father collected is surfacing. I think my father was probably the ultimate hunter-gatherer, or really, a hunter-gatherer gone awry. If anyone out there collects keychains or little pins or ashtrays, just let me know, and I can fill your garage.
My father was also fond of collecting books. It was kind of funny how many copies of the Official Boy Scout Handbook we discovered just today. One of his hobbies was to highlight passages in books. I even found highlighted text in cookbooks, and the guy could not even boil water! But anyway, we dug out this Japan Unmasked book by Ichiro Kawasaki, and sure enough, there are highlighted sentences in there. The things my father chose to highlight are funny and odd enough, I think, to warrant a weekly posting. So, here is the first in the “George highlights Japan Unmasked” series:
page 13: ” . . . lack of individual initiative on the part of most Japanese and their tendency to act in mass psychology may, in part, be responsible for constantly telling others to do this and that.”
**Regarding the EEK pot in the previous post: I bought it at the local Fred Meyer supermarket. The bottom has “Holiday Home” on it, so I am guessing that is the manufacturer.

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12 Responses to Oh, george

  1. sue says:

    I love the graphic design on the boook cover, and that is an awesome trunk!

  2. megan says:

    hahaha. george is the best! i really didn’t know how awful caucasians were before my visit to his room today! horrible people, really.

  3. Julia says:

    Haha! I love how that’s worded…and the scary book title. Hilarious! Your father sounds like a character. :o)

  4. sally says:

    Ha! Hey…let me know if you want to sell any of the Official BS Handbooks because Appah has been wanting one for a long time now.

  5. sally says:

    Ha! Hey…let me know if you want to sell any of the Official BS Handbooks because Appah has been wanting one for a long time now.

  6. Seanna Lea says:

    One of my friend’s collects key chains. I am always on the lookout for unusual or quirky key chains! (He has them strung up across a wide passageway from the living room to the dining room of his apartment.) If you have some you’d like to part with, let me know and we can make arrangements, shipping, etc!

  7. now, i have so many questions regarding this passage….. do you think he underlined this passage because he totally agreed with it, or do you think he found it so hilariously off-base that he had to point it out…..
    looks like a book I will look in to reading…

  8. Lisa says:

    My Japanese-American father would have loved the book and the underlining. My Dad would clip articles to send to me and would use a combo of highlighter and red ink pen (using a ruler!)
    Gotta love the Japanese!

  9. Lisa says:

    My Japanese-American father would have loved the book and the underlining. My Dad would clip articles to send to me and would use a combo of highlighter and red ink pen (using a ruler!)
    Gotta love the Japanese!

  10. Susan M says:

    I remember when my ex-boyfriend showed me his parents’ basement. Scary! We found magazines that had ads in the back for mail-order spider monkeys! Uh…this sorta reminds me of that!
    I have a new blog peeps might be interested in!
    http://warmbunny.blogspot.com

  11. Alma says:

    Too funny. Yes, the highlighted passage from Japan Unmasked reminds me of the kind of thing my relatives would probably find worth noting…
    I hope no one minds but the post reminded me of a novel that one of my professors at JHU just published on Japanese fire balloons used during WWII and the role of Japanese-Americans in defeating Japan. “Red Rain” is the title. Tim Wendel is the author. I think anyone who is interested in the internment and how Japanese-Americans helped the war effort will find it worth reading.

  12. Kim says:

    I knew the author’s son (who is deceased). The author’s opinions were so unpopular in Japan that he lives/lived (I don’t know if he’s still alive) in Switzerland. His intention was to explain to Westerners Japanese ways, but his explanations were a little laughable.

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