Dreams Born Amidst Adversity: Abroad in Japan Review

 

“In smooth, methodical prose, Broad tells the story of self-discovery across the ocean and finding your voice. Unique and alluring.”

A small store in Barcelona, smaller than an apartment yet crowded in among countless other buildings. With the intention of showcasing authentic Japanese culture in a space 10 thousand kilometers from Tokyo, Satori is a store which makes the most of its limited space. Books about Japanese culture lined one wall, most in Spanish but with a few Catalan books in between. As appealing as those bound works appeared to be, for an American tourist who didn’t speak much Spanish, they were far out of my reach. 

On the opposite wall, stacked upon each other with all the organization of mismatched brick, was a small pile of English books. From the stack, I picked out Abroad in Japan, intrigued by the words written across the top. That classic phrase, which had accomplished its intended purpose by luring me in by promising the text within its pages was worthy of being called a bestseller. On the back, the short blurb advertised two points about the novel that drew me in: mainly, that he didn’t know the language of the country he had just willingly traveled to. That was all it took for me to make the purchase.

Even though Japan is almost nothing like Barcelona- and I knew that, despite what some little voices may say at my comparison- I found refuge in the experience that I was sharing with the Chris Broad of 2012. We were, in a sense, both fish out of water and flailing to find recognizable ground beneath our feet. Abroad in Japan covers Chris’ first two years in the country in detail, but the allure of the novel began to fade away somewhere around the last fourth of the book. 

With the culture shock and language struggle more or less out of the way, the book was something of a summary that outlined his struggles in making the YouTube channel a success. While stories about the “island of cats” and the Japanese Speech Contest aim to add that element back into the narrative, it falls short in feeling like something that appeals to fans of the channel as opposed to casual viewers.

At the end, it turned to the discussion of COVID in Japan. This felt familiar and simultaneously reintroduced the feeling from earlier chapters, in which the novel is a narrative as opposed to a summary of behind-the-scenes takes. Abroad in Japan might not be for everyone, but if you’re looking for an authentic experience of adjusting to a new life in Japan, then it’s worth checking out.