Most mainstream views of Japanese culture give the impression that the country is filled with nothing but salarimen, 9-to-5 drones happily chirping the company song when they aren't busy designing sixth-generation biocomputers or pocket cyclotrons. Yet, without trying hard, you can come up with some very un-salarimen-like Japanese cultural exports: The Boredoms, Akira Kurosawa, Haruki Murakami, Shonen Knife, Mothra, anime, ultraviolent manga. There must be some kind of underground culture free of the salaried world's time-clock mindset.
Indeed, there is a thriving alternative culture in Japan, and Karl Taro Greenfeld's Speed Tribes lets you get up close and personal with it. He walks you on the wild side, introducing you to misfortuned yakuza bookies; teenage motorcycle thieves/parts sub-contractors; porn star Choco Bon-Bon - the man with the most recognizable testicles in Japan; hard-core right-wingers who make Jesse Helms look like Carol Channing; computer otaku - obsessive collectors of computer trivia; and other Japanese characters who live their lives off the corporate clock.
Greenfeld has a unique insight into the people and culture he writes about. Born to an American father and a Japanese mother, and reared mainly in Los Angeles, he has an insider's knowledge of the deeper social contexts and happenings, but enough of an outsider's point of view to keep him from getting lost in the scene. He always remembers to bring it back to those of us gaijin who are way, way on the outside.
Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation, by Karl Taro Greenfeld: US$23. HarperCollins: (800) 331 3761, +1 (212) 207 7000.
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