Most tourism ads on Japan feature serene looking temples, sunrises – all sorts of beautiful scenery. Certainly, the Land of the Rising Sun is all that.

However, another side of the country exists. Giant mecha, robots usually with awesome destructive power, patrolling post-modern streets, strangely-dressed teenagers decked out in psychedelic colours and sporting anti-gravity hairstyles and other oddities are familiar cultural icons of modern-day Japanese culture.

Peter Carey’s short voyage through Japan attempts to connect these 2 seemingly paradoxical sides in Wrong About Japan. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.

A memoir-cum-travelogue of sorts, the two-time Booker-winning author’s latest offering chronicles his holiday to Japan and the many social mishaps that occur.

In 2002, right before the World Cup was hosted in Japan, Carey takes his 12-year-old son Charley there, after both father and son discover and become enchanted with anime (japanese animation) and manga (japanese comics). Charley, a typical American boy, wishes only to see the modern-day pop culture icons he is familiar with and wants none of the boring, cultural stuff like temples and ancient swords.

To Carey however, Japan is a mystical, wonderful land, resplendent in its peculiar modern state, while still possessing the depth and beauty of its ancient culture.

Shortly after arriving at a small traditional Japanese inn, they meet with their adolescent guide, Takashi, who is described by Charley, thus:

“It was not just his hair, or his eyes, or his clothes that distinguished him. There was a certain quality of light he seemed to have brought in with him, one quite distinct from the deep shadows and glowing gold tones of the ryokan (an old-fashion Japanese-style inn), something more like that clean white, almost hallucinogenic illumination in a Tokyo department store. He literally shone.”

Takashi, described as a “visualist” (someone who puts on a costume) within the book, dresses as a character from the cult anime, Mobile Suit Gundam. Decked out in full military uniform, knee high boots, gold buttons and hair “that stood up not so much in spikes but in dramatic triangular sections” and fiercely loyal to his favourite anime, Takashi could be described as an otaku (an obsessive fan).

Gaijin (Japanese word for foreigner) though Carey may be, he also has some of the otaku spirit within himself, and almost fanatically seeks to experience, understand and live parts of the Japanese life he is enthralled with.

Sadly, as much as Carey prepares for his exploratory venture into Japan, he finds that he cannot connect nor understand the cultural walls that modern-day Japan presents. Meetings with a swordsmith, anime directors and a corporate otaku end in disappointment and truths merely half unveiled. Carey can only look on in wonder and puzzlement as his son effortlessly navigates the labyrinthine subway systems and pens messages to Takashi through SMS.

Charley eventually abandons any pretence of liking Japanese food, favouring instead good old American style muffins and milk. Kabuki plays (a traditional form of Japanese theatre) bore both father and son, and Carey near the end, is “weary of pulling out (his) lists of questions, of having insights that were apparently only figments of (his) foreign imagination”.

While one can empathise with Carey’s repeated frustration and failures at piercing the cultural veil, Wrong About Japan actually says a lot more about the Japanese culture in relation to the modern Western world than if he had succeeded in getting his interviewees to gush about Japan. In this sense, Carey’s novel is almost Japanese in that the reader gets a feeling of the social nuances of the Japanese culture in what Carey’s incomplete encounters imply.

From father’s and son’s shock at a toilet that “looked like a contraption designed for a science-fiction comedy” to Takashi’s insistence that the same toilet was American in origin, this book is a good example of how different and unique we might be, despite the reaches of modernisation and globalisation.

It also takes a look at how language can both separate and bring people together and how people attempt to live and adapt to a world that is becoming more and more a hodgepodge of different cultures.

Reminiscent at times of the movie Lost In Translation, this book is an interesting read – an honest record of cultural displacement that anyone who’s stayed in a foreign country should be able to identify with. If you were hoping to embark on a journey of enlightenment though, consider yourself forewarned and don’t be Wrong About Japan.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Wrong About Japan is available at Borders for $29.95.

Image from Amazon.com