'Welcome to tsunamiland, successor to Rwandaland, Sudanland'

[Taro Toporific]

I can't really put my finger on it but this book review of Don Lee's "Country Of Origin," is like a piano that hasn't been tuned in 30 years: It's off-key somehow a dozen grating ways and it's just not the creative spelling and grammar. Still the "tsunamiland" quip makes it worth reading.

...Country of Origin... key characters are involved with the American embassy in Japan. The Foreign Service hierarchy keeps hapas in minor level jobs beyond which few are promoted. CIA operatives use their hapa characteristics to ingratiate themselves with Japanese deemed to be useful to promoting American interests. Yet, being hapa remains a barrier to inclusion or to acceptance even though of Japanese ancestry....."After 1980, everything had changed -- decades of solipsism and greed that seemed without end. The Cold War was over. The Japanese economic bubble had burst. Countries and civilizations rose and fell. But the great divisions of ethnicity and class and religion raged on, and everything was still, in the end, about money. The world was a much meaner place now, more superficial, more corruptible. There were scandals, but nothing was really scandalous, because the worst things imaginable happened everyday and were immediately packaged into entertainment. No one seemed to have any innocence left to lose. Yet, underneath it all, people still lived out a million heartrending dramas of no consequence, searching for love and kinship, finding joy and betrayal. Hostage to their hearts." (p. 310)
Welcome to tsunamiland, successor to Rwandaland, Sudanland, Somaliland, Iraqland, . . . Disneyland and to all the moments of tragedies past their 15 minutes of entertainment....more....
Swans Commentary, book review of : Don Lee's "country Of Origin,"
By Milo Clark , Jan 16, 2005