What's it like to be "a broad" in Japan? Pover does not offer a single view: each experience is unique. Many women feel strong feelings of alienation and isolation. For one thing, some western women perceive the Japanese as "The Other." Many feel a lack of a sense of "belonging" in Japan. One woman writes, "No matter how comfortable you may feel at times here, you will inevitably be reminded that this is not your country. Those messages, no matter how kindly delivered, can be devastating at certain times. Be prepared."

By having a number of first hand accounts, some of the more stronger feelings on life in Japan are shown in within a cycle of adjusting to a foreign culture. For example, she focuses one chapter on pampering and beauty. Pover discusses western women adjusting to ever fashion conscious Japan, and the various assaults on body image when "nothing"-from bras to shoes-ever seems to fit. "I see myself as Amazon Woman here, although back home I'm pretty average." "When I sat down on a train, I felt that people were making extra space for my 'enormous' (36 inch) hips. . .My feelings about my appearance grew out of a profound sense of not fitting in, and not belonging." This is all perfectly normal, Pover assures us."Regardless of their ideas of 'femminity,' most Western women go through a phase of feeling big, clumsy, and unattractive." These feelings abate over time, she assures us, gives the reader ideas for short term "fixes" such as pamper and massages to ease the process.

As an all-embracing document on foreign women in Japan, therein lies the book's greatest asset and liability. Pover's resistance to typifying life in Japan sometimes works to great advantage—as life in any major city in the world has its saints, sinners, and the occasional whacko walking the streets, a metropolis such as Tokyo is no exception. A seemingly obvious observation, but within the context of the relentless mythology that Japan is somehow different (as typified by Nihonjinron) or "unique," it is a sharp observation.

However, because Pover equally validates all the experiences of the women in the book, it is difficult for the reader to assess whether the anecdotes are representative. For example, in a section on jobs, she has 85 pages of first hand accounts of working in Japan. Besides the perhaps more usual JET program English teacher, she interviewed almost everyone from an Ivy league educated stripper, a financial planner, a nurse, to a freelance illustrator. While interesting in voyueristic way, such broad survey of jobs held by women with an even wider variety of backgrounds and abilities, is not ultimately useful. 

It seems that the thin line between "Japan" and personal experience is blurred in this book—this is neither good nor bad and makes for lively reading. However, it begs the question, At what point can certain experiences be ascribed as typical of that country? In a section on mental health, she writes of the stresses of living in a country which is, at times, sexist and sometimes baffling, even to a fluent Japanese speaker. As a sojourner in Japan, it is easy to fall into the trap of ascribing a rude encounter, a date who was a jerk, a sexist remark, racism, homophobia, a psychotic boss, or even something as benign as a misunderstanding—the sandpaper (or sandblaster) of life—as endemic of the country as a whole, not to individuals. Where is that line? When is a bad day merely a bad day, or a symptom of a pervasive attitude? Pover never really answers the question, but in reporting the wealth of experiences of her interviewees, she avoids pat condemnations of "Japan" as a nation or a culture.

The above comments are more food for thought rather than criticisms of Pover's book—as a guide book, it is excellent: packed with information on coping with life in general, not just in Japan, it is clear, lucid, and above all, useful. Male or female, young or old, straight or gay, if you are new to, or considering moving to Japan, it is essential reading. At the very least, it is a book to be kept stashed at the bottom of your bag. It contains phone numbers and resources from everything from English speaking gynecologists to organic food delivery services. If you don't speak Japanese, each section has useful phrases in Roman letters. Buy it now, you'll be glad to have it when you have an emergency such as an earthquake, or when the earth stops moving, a pregnancy. Most of all, the book's attitude is perhaps the most valuable—life in Japan, like life in general, is what you make of it. Common sense? Perhaps, but an observation that many more learned writers on Japan have missed.