"Why would a college graduate with such impeccable credentials such as a BA in English, diabetes, credit card debt, and a fierce and unstoppable homosexuality leave the boundless opportunities available to him in the USA (temping, waiting tables, getting shot at by high school students) for a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people who make him look fat?"
The travel genre is bloated with books clamoring to answer variations on that question, and they usually have to do with romance, redemption and the quest for personal growth through encounters with another culture. Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries, Tim Anderson's account of the two years he taught English in Japan, stands out among such stories because his stint abroad has very little to do with personal growth--focusing instead on funny stories about classroom mishaps, bad roommates and chemically enhanced adventures in Tokyo nightclubs. If you're looking for insight into Japanese culture, this is likely not the book for you.
But it's so much fun. Anderson refuses to take himself too seriously, and he's unafraid to let his status as a gaijin (outsider) who "doesn't speak a lick of Japanese" get in the way of seeking out experiences that make great stories, like joining an all-Japanese rock band on the viola. He also puts his wit to work in commentary on Japanese pop culture (like the national obsession with characters from "the Hello Kitty School of Aggressive Cuteness"), gay manga comics and the mysteriously ubiquitous pairing of dorky white guys and super-hot Japanese women. Anderson moved to Tokyo to have a good time. His Gaijin Diaries are your invitation to the party. --Hannah Calkins, blogger at Unpunished Vice