A review by juliecohen
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein

4.0

Geeky American Jewish guy (he looks a bit like Adam Sandler in his Amazon photo) goes to Japan, learns some Zen stuff, learns Japanese, manages to get a job working for one of the largest Japanese newspapers, and covers the police beat. Learns a lot about Japanese culture, Japanese vice. Gets in some trouble. Tells his story in an interesting, engaging, informative way, with only occasional annoying references to his sexual prowess.[return][return]I liked this book a lot. Overall, it was well written and interestingly structured (for non-fiction). There were some minor annoyances, but those were fairly easily ignored. Mostly, I found it really informative, even interrupting the football games to read a few passages out loud. Most interesting to me was how Adelstein for the most part seemed to integrate into Japanese culture, but still kept his Americanness and used it when it would help, which led to many interesting observations of Japanese society/culture from both an “insider” and an “outsider”.