The questions they ask!

Although I had been extensively briefed to lead a tour in Japan, and although I've read extensively about Japanese history, Japanese culture, Buddhism, Shinto, Japanese gardens, and although I had already visited and was familiar with many of the sites the tour group would be visiting, I was not prepared for the questions people asked.

They did not ask about the subjects on which I was prepared: What is a bodhisattva? When did Buddhism come to Japan? Why don't Japanese gardens have flowers?

They asked things like: Why are some Japanese license plates yellow and some white? Why are the Japanese so polite? And—an example I used in the book—what kind of flower is this? A friend who has led many, many more tours of Japan probably has more arcane knowledge about the country than most natives because he's been asked so many off-the-wall questions...and has taken the time to find the answers.

I was talking about this with a tour guide in Italy, and she agreed that tour members could ask surprising questions. She once explained the Roman bus system to a group and said, "When you want to get off at your stop, push the red button to signal the driver."

A member of her group held up her hand and asked, "Can you describe the red button?"

Well...it's red...and it's round...and you push it.

Introduction to the book and the author

Getting Oriented is a novel set in Japan. The action follows a group of ten American tourists as they visit Kyoto, Nara, Hakone, Nikko, and Tokyo. Their guide is Philip Fletcher, recently down-sized and whose wife had been killed in an accident a year and a half before the novel opens. Phil speaks Japanese and is offered the tour-guide job by an old college buddy.

I wrote the novel because I am fascinated by Japan, Japanese culture, American responses to the culture, and because I was interested in the way a group of strangers react to each other and to a foreign culture. I plan to use this blog to talk about Japan, Japanese, and writing.