(Part 2) Best books about japanese people according to redditors

Yes, absolutely.

To begin with, don't forget that the romanticized Western image of samurai as hyper honor focused warrior monk types is pure exoticism with no real historic backing.

More to the point, like with the knights of Europe, while there was an official ideal of honor it was more prescriptive than descriptive and when you have a large group of heavily armed men some are going to be scumbags.

Further, "samurai" simply meant "person from the caste permitted to carry weapons", towards the end of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) a great many samurai class men had no real weapon training, a minimal pension from the government, and generally survived by running up debts which were nullified every few years by government edict.

The Seven Samurai takes place earlier, in the Sengoku period (aka the Warring States Period), at a time of chaos and general confusion. There was no centralized government, no rule beyond what the local warlord decreed and could enforce, and samurai (again, meaning "people who carried weapons", not "super highly trained and deeply honorable warrior monk types") were thugs enforcing the will of their local warlord, which usually meant stealing whatever they could from the peasants and calling it taxes.

Or, worse, they were ronin. When a warlord was defeated his soldiers (samurai) often just wandered off and turned to banditry to survive. There's a lot of mythology and several stories involving deeply honorable ronin seeking adventure and vengeance for the people who betrayed their lords, but mostly in real life they were just armed and trained men who took whatever they could from the people least likely to fight back.

You might check out State of War, it's more about the somewhat earlier times than the Sengoku period, but most of what it covers applies to the later periods as well.

For an interesting, often funny, first hand, primary source, account of daily life for a poor man of samurai class during the mid Tokugawa period check Musui's Story, it's a very quick read, an autobiography written by Musui himself, who lived a quite disreputable life and busts a lot of myths of the noble honorable samurai.

TL;DR: even at the best of times, samurai were just soldiers, and historically soldiers weren't what you'd call very nice. In the worse times they were just bandits. The idea of samurai as super honorable warriors is just a myth.

She later wrote a memoir targeted at YA readers.

according to this book I read https://www.amazon.com/Falling-Hard-Journey-into-World/dp/1590307151

he stated that Putin started Sambo at age 14 and judo around a year later. He won tournaments in Leningrad and took 3rd place at Russian Junior Nationals, and he also became senior champion later. He then joined the KGB where they had to continue some sort of combat training.

So the broader history book is A New History of Korea and starts very very far back. It will provide a general overview of Korean history. As for modern history if you don't know much about Korea's modern history a good place to start is Korea's 20th Century Odyssey. It starts in around the 1890s and if I remember correctly ends with the democracy movements of the 1980s. It very clearly divides the different periods of Korea's 20th century experience e.g. the colonial period, the war and the Park Chung-Hee regime. It is a very good starting point. If you want to have a deeper understanding of the colonial period there are two books I would recommend, the first being Colonial Modernity in Korea which covers a lot of the developments in Korea during the colonial period. Another book I want to recommend is Under the Black Umbrella which is a collection of first hand experiences and stories of people who lived during the colonial period. As for the Park Chung-Hee period there are two suggestions I have but they mostly focus more on economic policy and development. The first book is Korea's Development Under Park Chung-Hee and the second book is Reassessing the Park Chung-Hee Era. Both are pretty high in economic content but the second book does also have a lot of content focusing on political developments. If you read a few of these you will have a good understanding of Korean modern history.

Very common between rich men and poor (or poorer) women around the world.

Cixi was born to an unimportant father. She became a concubine because she was hot. She became the second woman in China (only to the empress) by giving birth to a son. After the emperor died, she brutally seized power and basically ran the Empire for over 40 years. So yeah, rags to riches.

The 5th Shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi was born from a concubine who was the daughter of a greengrocer. What made him different from his brothers is that he was raised by her, which gave him a very different perspective on the whole samurai class than most of the Shoguns. She also had a much closer relationship with her son, as it is presumed that his father was trying to make Tsunayoshi "soft" in order to not present a threat to his older brother (the 4th Shogun). After he became Shogun, quite by chance, she used her closeness with him to achieve real power behind the scenes, though she didn't possess supreme executive power. So, rags to riches.

In France, it was considered gauche by the royalty to take a commoner as a mistress, but there were a lot of really poor noblewomen from the sticks that were certainly eligible. And even then, the prohibition wasn't really all that hard to get around. Madame de Pompadour was given a title to this end. Madame du Barry was born poor, and became a courtesan when she grew up, where she caught the eye of the king. She had a noble lineage forged by her pimp. She was given a title by marrying a count, which made her eligible to be the king's official mistress. (What? Yep - it was less scandalous for a married woman to be a mistress in France than an unmarried one.)

Japanese Destroyer Captain by Hara gives a first hand account of his work in developing torpedo tactics in the IJN and his involvement during the war. It's probably pretty biased though, but its a good read.

/u/space_fanatic /u/kindaabstruse and /u/fleetmind I'm home and I've got the book for ya: "Supreme Commander: MacArthur's Triumph in Japan" by Seymour Morris, Jr.

https://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Commander-MacArthurs-Triumph-Japan-ebook/dp/B00DB3D6C2

Hope ya'll enjoy. Its very readable. Does a good job of blending factual history and dynamic pacing to keep the book moving along and you dont ever feel bogged down or overwhelmed. Hope you enjoy.

I'll give you a hint. This book was written by a japanese destroyer captain, one of about 150 or so at the start of the war. He was the only one that survived the war, and all 3 ships he commanded during the war were sunk.

Honestly, this question is really just asking "hey, could you retell the main narrative of Japanese history for 1000 years?" It's kind of like asking "What's the relationship between the Pope and European Kings and Queens?" and it should probably be in popular questions. I mean honestly just read any textbook, since this relationship is the central political question at any point from 1200 onwards. It's not in popular questions and this would make a crappy /r/askhistorians post though, so I'll go ahead and link-filled summarize:

It depends on what time period you're talking about. Since you explicitly asked for shogun/emperor, I'll start with the first shogunate. Established in Kamakura (symbolically, far away in the traditional lands of the Minamoto clan instead of in Kyoto where the Emperor was) in 1192 as a result of the Gempei war, it stripped the emperor of most of his temporal power. Even at that point, though, the operative power was not in the Emperor himself, but rather his courtiers (see the fujiwara clan), as the Emperor himself spent most his time fulfilling the many Shinto-Daoist rituals that were cosmologically needed to keep the realm in working order (a lot of waving stuff around, purifying stuff, burning stuff, etc.) The war was really between to rival warrior families who were desperately trying to marry into the courtiers and eventually the Imperial family itself. One won, the other lost, and the winner set up an alternate power structure. From here on, power fluctuated between a few sources. At some points, Emperors would 'retire' to become monks, leave their sons to do the ritual crap, while they exercised some measure of power
from the monastery (no small irony there). In this period, around 1340, after another short war/power struggle, the Ashikaga family deposed the Kamakura shogunate and set up their own shogunate within Kyoto itself. Depending on who was shogun and who was cloistered, real power fluctuated. Sometimes even abbots of powerful temples would get in the mix. In terms of actual family ties, all 3 groups were closely linked and regularly intermarried. For a really good monograph on this interesting period, I'd see Gates of Power by Adolphson.

By the late 1400s, though, that system was breaking down altogether. Local Samurai basically acted on their own perogatives on their own land. At this point, the Sengoku Jidai (age of country at war), there are people claiming this and that in terms of rulership, and all of it is meaningless. The only thing that mattered was military strength and personal loyalty, which could be broken at the drop of a hat if the benefits were seen to outweigh the consequence. For this period, the history shelf is littered with colorful picture books about the HONORABLE SAMURAI WARRIOR and all kinds of nonsense (it is also when Shogun: Total War (and its re-make) is set). One trustworthy monograph on the ending throes, that I'd say also captures the essence of the period, would be Japonius Tyrannus by Jeroen Lamers.

The Tokugawa Shogunate, set up by the eventual victor in 1600 onwards, sought to solidify sole control. During the wars, the great temples had been almost completely obliterated, so they were out. The Shogunate removed the other threat to their power, the Imperial Court, by taking over administration and funding of the Imperial Household (and thus removing the powerful courtiers that traditionally surrounded the Emperor together). In order to leave the Emperor to his important ritual business, they very kindly removed from his household the burden of managing any land--making them completely dependent and unable to cultivate their own powerbase. While the Emperor was still seen as the ultimate source of both political and cultural legitimacy, temporal power was seen to have been devolved entirely to the Tokugawa family (who did still regularly marry daughters off to Emperors). With the Royal Baby in our thoughts, I'd say it's similar to how the UK runs now; the Emperor is around, popular, and beloved, but not even a figurehead in terms of running things. A good window into how things ran in the middle of the period would be The Dog Shogun by Beatrice Bodart-Bailey.

This is, until the "Opening of Japan" leads to everyone going nuts. For the Boshin war and what follows, I did write a post about that here just a few days ago. One thing I didn't link to in that is a book about all the neat intellectual history, which really touches on your question in terms of how intellectuals built up a sense of legitimacy for the Imperial Restoration and how that leads up to the revolution, so I'll link it here: Before the Nation by Susan Burns.

Japan was not about to surrender. They had advance warning that those two bombs were about to be dropped, but because of the Japanese way of needing a consensus to reach a decision, that decision was never reached- in time. Most in the government wanted to, but there were holdouts. Even after the first bomb was dropped, they were still deliberating. Only after Nagasaki took a nuke (3 days later) they finally surrendered.

Not that I am defending the bombings, it's just simply not true the Japanese were "about to surrender."
Edit: The state of Japan at the time was pretty bad. It wouldn't have been able to mount a defense against U.S. ground forces. So an invasion may have actually been the better option (vs. nuclear strikes).

Edit 2: Here is an excellent book, essentially a diary written by a Japanese physician, on the conditions in Japan just before and after the Hiroshima bombing. It also details the horrors of what such weapons can do. https://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-Diary-Japanese-Physician-6-September/dp/0807845477

The Way of Judo is one of my favorites a smooth read but contains some factual errors that I had forgotten about. See /u/Geschichtenerzaehler's comment below. The books /u/Ryvai mentioned are good too.

But since you're here from BJJ for some Judo history, I want to take a minute to correct some straight up historical revisionism that I see a lot in BJJ.

1. Mitsuyo Maeda was a Judoka, not a Jujitsu student. As far as I have been able to find he didn't study Jujitsu for a single day of his life, just Sumo and Judo.
   
   
2. Yamashita Yoshiaki studied JJJ as a young man, but when he came to America he was a high ranking Judoka and taught Judo, not Jujitsu, to Americans, including President Roosevelt. Judo was very purposefully named, and Yamashita would never have called what he was teaching anything but Judo.
   
   
3. The quote by Teddy Roosevelt saying "The art of Jiu Jitsu is worth more in every way than all of our athletics combined" is 100% locally grown organic bullshit.
   
   
4. Kano to the best of my knowledge never once referred to Judo as "Kano Jiu Jitsu." Some other people did, including the wretched H Irving "This book says The complete Kano Jujitsu but I should say this book teaches nothing of my Judo" Hancock. Kano put a ton of thought into the name Judo, and while some newspapers in Brazil may have erroneously called it "Kano Jiu Jitsu," no one in Japan did, least of all Kano or any of his students.
   
   I used to think that BJJ just didn't care about getting the history right, but after two recent articles by Robert Drysdale I'm beginning to think it's an intentional revising of history to make BJJ seem like The One True Art and Judo its trivial footnote of a cousin. Seriously, click on both articles, control-f search for "Judo" and "Kano." Article One. Article Two. They're also good reads if you are interested in the direction of BJJ, but I was alarmed by how wrong he gets some of the historical facts.
   
   EDIT: spelling

Tangential, but not completely off topic: Especially if it's a Japanese Akita, read Martha Sherrill's Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain. It's a story, not a how-to manual or anything, but it's really interesting.

The Emperor's speech to the nation, gyokuon-hōsō, went a lot of the way towards squashing all desire for resistance. The Emperor basically told the Japanese to lay down their weapons (no one understood what he was saying, but everyone knew who gave the order). A good account of this can be found in the book Hiroshima Diary, probably one of the most raw accounts of the post-Hiroshima period, and available at a great library near you.

There was a group of military men who actually broke into the Imperial Palace and attempted to perform a coup in order to stop the speech from being broadcast, and the recording of the Emperor's voice had to be smuggled out in a pile of women's underwear. At least three plotted coups had to be foiled before the speech could get on the air, and once it was successfully broadcast many military men committed suicide. This is dramatized in the film Japan's Longest Day.

The Japanese fully expected the Allies to be vicious brutes coming to rape their women like in wartime propaganda. The Occupation was not free of incidents, but overwhelmingly, there was a virtuous cycle of the American army reacting positively to the total lack of resistance among the Japanese, which in turn caused the Japanese to realize that the Americans weren't actually that bad. There were no attempts to overthrow the occupiers. After the Americans left, there were attempts by small ultra-right groups to overthrow the independent government, but they did not go well.

Perhaps they'd enjoy some travel writing to give them a flavour of Japan before they go?

They're 20 years old now but I'm a huge fan of the two books Alan Booth wrote about walking in rural Japan.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Looking-Lost-Journeys-Vanishing-Kodansha/dp/1568361483/

this looks good: http://www.amazon.com/Eihei-Dogen-Mystical-Hee-Jin-Kim/dp/0861713761/

And for those who prefer a realistic view of the actual lives of Samurai, read Musui's Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai or Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushido in Modern Japan (The Past and Present Book Series)

;)

Geisha, a Life

If you'd like a different view, there's also Autobiography of a Geisha, whose author was a geisha at an onsen and writes about quite a different experience for a group of women also falling under the title of "geisha".

OP, there are two Jiro books. The one listed on your link is just pretty pictures with a little bit of information on each kind of sushi neta. On the other hand this one is more of a cookbook. For 266 pages, it's a deep book. It extensively discusses a number of different sushi neta, the anatomy of bluefin tuna, how he breaks it down, and how the quality of the meat changes in every month of the year. The book also tells you how to shape nigiri and it has a number of different recipes; unfortunately, the recipes don't actually have the quantities required for each ingredient.

Even though it doesn't list the amounts you need for each ingredient, I would strongly recommend the Jiro book I linked, and I would recommend against the Jiro book that you linked.

Has anyone else here read Covering, by Kenji Yoshino? It's a really interesting examination of what is and isn't protected by the government. In a lot of cases, the determining factor seems to be whether you can hide whatever aspect is being discriminated against. For example, you can't hide being black, but you can hide African American culture. So you can't be discriminated against for being black, but you can be discriminated against for certain hairstyles or clothing choices associated with black culture. You can't be discriminated against for being Native American, but you can be discriminated against for speaking Cherokee in the workplace.

Falling Hard: A Journey into the World of Judo

It's basically following an older guys journey into judo through the ranks. He delves into the history of the sport a fair amount too. Really interesting read. Not very technical though, definitely more of a philosophy book.

https://www.amazon.com/Girl-White-Flag-Tomiko-Higa/dp/1568365314

Funnily enough, I'm reading this on my phone. It's a good read!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00ET924M0/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Here are a few good ones that I have read and would definitely reccomend.

Speed Tribes: Days and Night's with Japan's Next Generation
by Karl Taro Greenfeld

> http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Tribes-Nights-Japans-Generation/dp/0060926651/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267655889&sr=8-1

Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West
by T.R. Reid

> http://www.amazon.com/Confucius-Lives-Next-Door-Teaches/dp/0679777601/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267655960&sr=1-1#noop

Black Passenger Yellow Cabs: Of Exile And Excess In Japan
by Stefhen F. D. Bryan

> http://www.amazon.com/Black-Passenger-Yellow-Cabs-Excess/dp/0615268102/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267656194&sr=1-1

those should keep you busy for a while.

Jake Aldenstein (first non Japanese reporter for a major Japanese newspaper) wrote a book called Tokyo Vice, which has elements of what you are looking for. Its mostly about his life as a gaijin reporter, versus just being a gaijin.

His other book, Dogs and Demons is really good. Looking for the Lost is an excellent read that's somewhat related to Dogs and Demons by the author Alan Booth. He walked the length of Japan in 1977 and wrote a book about his travels called Roads to Sata, which I highly recommend, especially if you liked Looking for the Lost (In fact you may want to read this one first).

And if you find you enjoyed Roads to Sata, then read Hitching Rides with Buddha by Will Ferguson, who hitchhiked the length of Japan.

Hey did you read the book called Yellow Cab Black Passenger? Its about a Jamaican guy with a sex addiction who goes to Japan and goes on what seems like a non-stop carousel of Japanese chicks. I was wondering what your take on it was?

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Passenger-Yellow-Cabs-Excess/dp/0615268102/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375189958&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=yellow+cab+black+passengeer

My favorite book on him is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Eihei-Dogen-Mystical-Hee-Jin-Kim/dp/0861713761

Quite accessible if you take it slowly.

https://www.amazon.com/Man-No-Talents-Memoirs-Laborer/dp/080144375X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=a+man+with+no+talents&qid=1566508527&s=gateway&sr=8-1

He actually was a day laborer in that district, San'ya. It doesn't have the greatest of ratings but I enjoyed the read. I felt bad for him but he seemed really resigned to that lifestyle. I think it just made me uncomfortable knowing the kind of life he lived but not really wanting for more. Almost like he was just... existing?

I'm probably going to go back and read it again. I believe he won an award for the book as well but either declined to accept the award or declined to do any press for it. I think its worth a read, it's not too long and the memories he recall expose a side of Japan many never see or think of.

This is a list that I saved (from reddit a while back. I wish I could give credit to the original poster, but the person who posted it also quoted the list. So whoever compiled this list. KUDOS! I wish I could give you credit:

>So the broader history book is A New History of Korea and starts very very far back. It will provide a general overview of Korean history. As for modern history if you don't know much about Korea's modern history a good place to start is Korea's 20th Century Odyssey. It starts in around the 1890s and if I remember correctly ends with the democracy movements of the 1980s. It very clearly divides the different periods of Korea's 20th century experience e.g. the colonial period, the war and the Park Chung-Hee regime. It is a very good starting point. If you want to have a deeper understanding of the colonial period there are two books I would recommend, the first being Colonial Modernity in Korea which covers a lot of the developments in Korea during the colonial period. Another book I want to recommend is Under the Black Umbrella which is a collection of first hand experiences and stories of people who lived during the colonial period. As for the Park Chung-Hee period there are two suggestions I have but they mostly focus more on economic policy and development. The first book is Korea's Development Under Park Chung-Hee and the second book is Reassessing the Park Chung-Hee Era. Both are pretty high in economic content but the second book does also have a lot of content focusing on political developments. If you read a few of these you will have a good understanding of Korean modern history.

Yeah becoming is not available in Japanese but found these
https://www.amazon.co.jp/ミシェル・オバマの言葉-ライザ-ロガック/dp/4847018842
https://www.amazon.co.jp/ミシェル・オバマ-愛が生んだ奇跡-デヴィッド・コルバート/dp/4861191254/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_1/355-9061894-2293137?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=4861191254&pd_rd_r=0e2c2396-58d6-11e9-af9b-1597d02c1bd2&pd_rd_w=DM9Ak&pd_rd_wg=wS0C4&pf_rd_p=2eb5268e-6ff8-4b13-8822-fcfaa9eea37e&pf_rd_r=S88SGK2KPMNQ91QRZG1R&psc=1&refRID=S88SGK2KPMNQ91QRZG1R

While it may have been written in 1985, I would say that The Roads to Sata: A 2000-mile Walk Through Japan by the late Alan Booth (also a compatriot of yours) would be a must-read before coming to Japan as you are - for an extended visit. Reading it may inspire you to look up some of the obscure places that he visited - although not necessarily all on foot as he did. Another of Booth's works published posthumously "Looking for the Lost" is also worth a read (not to be confused with Alex Kerr's Lost Japan - which is also decent although I think Kerr's book could benefit from a stronger editor when he delves too much into his pronounced artsy-fartsy fetishes)

you can read this book and educate yourself about the real history, it's a good read and very interesting to know what he really did
https://www.amazon.com/Anjin-Samurai-William-1564-1620-Japanese-ebook/dp/B01JUTJ7XC

Very similar to the history of the Akita Inu breed. There's a book out there that my grandfather lent me that turned out to be an interesting read. I'll have to see if I can find it.

Edit: Just remembered enough to google it. It's Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain by Martha Sherrill.

If you're interested in sharp, witty historical female authors, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonogon is a masterpiece. She was a contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu who wrote "The Tale of Genji" and kind of contemptuous of her for a lot of the reasons modern feminists would take issue with Genji's author.

Very much worth reading, it's in short vignettes and poems, mostly, so something that you can pick up spend as much or little time reading as you like.

Read a short book called "Mutsui's Story". You can get it on Amazon pretty cheap. It's the story of a low-ranking samurai who dips into the black market, spends a bunch of time in the red light district, and so on. Also, it's an autobiography, so it's right from the source!

https://www.amazon.com/Musuis-Story-Autobiography-Tokugawa-Samurai/dp/0816512566

A Man With No Talents: Memoirs of a Tokyo Day Laborer by Oyama Shiro. This book provides a different perspective on Japanese society. It's written by a man who got a degree, became a salary man and realized that he hated everything about it. He quits and becomes a day laborer. By the time he has written this book he is in his fifties I believe. Anyway, give it a try. It's a short book and easy to read.

Hmm....I'm going to interpret that question as '10 Books in No Particular Order that Weren't Massive Bestsellers that I Loved*'

• The Good Women of China An amazing book about the struggles of women in China from 1950s-1980s.
  
  
• Ode to Kirihito The book that got me hooked on Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy)'s classic manga.
  
  
• Shades of Milk and Honey A Regency Romance with a touch of fantasy, and the writing is a pleasure.
  
  
• Ender's Game Hardly indie anymore, but I found this near the bottom of a pile of books in middle school, thus launching my love of SF/F
  
  
• A Man with No Talents An anonymous account of a man who dropped out of the Salaryman life and became free to live his life as he wanted.
  
  
• The Dancing girls of Lahore A brutal, honest account of the underworld of courtesans in Pakistan.
  
  
• The Legend of Eli Monpress Escapist fantasy with amazing characters and a plot that keeps the reader up well past bedtime.
  
  
• Off to Be the Wizard Probably the closest to 'indie' on here, hardly a deep book but a hilarious geeky romp.
  
  
• Live Free or Die This one surprised me a bit, but my Libertarian SF-loving self just fell head-over-heels for this series.
  
  
• Boneshaker Because dammit, this is the one that sent me down the Steampunk rabbit hole.
  
  /* Ebooksgirl reserves the right at any time to change, amend, add or delete this list.

Continued 2/2

> Other groups that have been victims of racism and persecution got along just fine. That isn't to excuse the behavior, but it does illustrate rather well that racism has never been an insurmountable obstacle to group success. Take the Chinese & Japanese in the 19th century. We even imprisoned the whole of the Japanese race & confiscated their property. They bounced right back, demographically speaking. Jews have been getting the short end of the stick for centuries, yet they do quite well regardless. Chinese immigrants in Indonesia are subject to discrimination in the law and racism on a social level, etc, yet still are doing way better than the average Indonesian. Koreans in LA in the early 90's. Blacks were racist towards them, and decided heavy looting was in order. They are doing way better than blacks. There are many more examples. Clearly racism doesn't have much explanatory value for why Blacks are doing so poorly, especially considering the fact that newer groups quickly overtake them in the numbers.

Okay, this is where the meat is from me. This is so wrong. So very, very wrong. I think it comes from a place of non-malevolent ignorance but man, is it wrong. Three major things you should know about here: the Model Minority, Passing, and Covering. The model minority is basically playing your kids against each other and wondering why one of them acts out. "Why can't you be more like the Japanese, they listen to what I have to say and I treat them fine don't I?" It is psychological warfare that turns people who threaten you on each other and in no way, shape, or form is its goal equality. They did it with the house slaves and field slaves and light skins and dark skins. It's really destructive and manipulative and simply an insidious form of othering. It's about keeping the one's who hate on their stomach and keeping the one's you tolerate on their knees. It's almost as brilliant as it is psychopathic. Passing and covering are even more insidious in that passing is hiding your heritage in order to bypass discrimination (notice how many Jewish actors have changed their names in order to avoid being typecast) while covering is letting someone claim an identity as long as they never act in a manner that aligns with that identity (i.e. you can be gay as long as you don't do or say anything that makes me feel you're gay). Racism has so much explanatory value for everything in your third point. Blacks are the minority the model minorities are pitted against, have the highest visual obstacle when passing, and are the group encouraged to cover the most because indicators of blackness are most closely coded with "professionally unacceptable".

> I am making the simple argument that making people less equal under the law is a bad idea that won't help to end racism, and is in fact discriminatory by definition. It is a policy mistake to avoid. Not a goal to be lauded.

That's my problem with your argument: it's simple. Not in a clear or concise way, but a shallow one. Complaints with no solutions, fairness from a single perspective, and fear of the consequences without looking at the value of the rewards. At the end of the day, you can think what you think, but you haven't convinced me that you've really thought about it.



Disclaimer: As I mentioned before, you strike me as a sharp dude and I'm not trying to paint you as or accuse you of being a bigot or a bad person. I do, however, have a really hard time watching people use something I value (intellect) to attack something else I truly value (social justice). Doesn't help I see it a ton on reddit, especially since I identify with redditors and others nerds a heck of a lot. I get that sometimes the lizard brain wants to lock the doors or cross the street for safety at the sake of tolerance, I do and can't get too mad at that. That said, I don't think we can let the lizard brain run our words and deeds 24/7 and be passed of as "just being rational". I appreciate that you're engaging instead of just hiding what you think (internet anonymity excluded) because there are a lot of people who have strong opinions about minority groups and just act them out in the shadows. I still disagree with a lot of what you have had to say, but it's a forum that allows the 2 or 3 people who scroll down this far to see both sides and come up with their own, more informed, thoughts.

That movie was gorgeous.The woman who gave him the information also wrote her own account because she believed Arthur Golden misrepresented her and the life of a geisha and breached their contract (she had stipulated that he not reveal her identity). I recommend it for anyone that loved Memoirs of a Geisha.

You might already know this but I wanted to leave it in case others do not.

edit: apparently this one is also good for a look at the non-glamorous side of the geisha world.

Thank you, I'm flattered

that you could be impressed by five book that I hold dear to my heart. I have strong feelings about adding books to my collection, as it's far more important to me to know a book, that to simply be able to purchase it. I have far too many books that I confess I'm only acquainted with, and do not know deeply :( A good book owns me as much as I own it. I carry it with me in my thoughts.

>I would love to read more about that but I have this fear of not understanding their way of life, of respect, of loyalty to the monarch/ shogun.

Instead, please take my offering of a small library of five books on samurai aesthetics.

• Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. This was written in the Shogunal period. Read this one.
  
• The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. This is written a little earlier, and concerns itself with swordsmanship.
  
• Bushido the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe. This is a more recent work, written after the Meiji Restoration.
  
• The fourth book on this list should be on Kyudo (archery)- (such as found quoted by Emiya Shirou in F S/N.)
  
• Fifth book is a free choice: my personal pick is The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, from the Heian period, for poetry. The alternate contenders would be The Book of Tea, for Zen; or The Art of War, for Confucianism.
  
  I hope you are much more impress by the quality of the words written in these books, and what they might evoke in you, rather than their habitation in my life. I am but the humble reader.
  

i don't know if this helps but,

https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Obama-Japanese-David-Colbert/dp/4861191254