Sojourner of the mystical realm
By STEVE FINBOW
THE PASSING SUMMERS, The Japanese Mystique: Charm and Consequence, by Ivy C. Machida. Printed Matter Press, 2010, 280 pp., $20 (paper)
The 21st century has seen a proliferation of memoirs entering the book market — from James Frey’s memoir-fiction “A Million Little Pieces” to the slew of ghosted celebrity autobiographies that take up valuable space on bookshelves and in Kindle and iPad memories.
The personal histories of expatriates are commonplace, not only in the literary world but also on the blogosphere. So, how does a new edition to the genre add to our view of Japan?
After studying law at the University of Singapore, Ivy C. Machida moved to the United States to take postgraduate courses at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and then at Yale. Entranced by Japanese culture and history after a fleeting visit to Tokyo and Kyoto, she became obsessed with the “mystical realm” of Nippon.
Interested in international law and human rights during the Vietnam War and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution during the late 1960s, Ivy was offered a position at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. While in Washington, she met her husband-to-be Jay, and her infatuation with all things Japanese intensified.