My Laborious, Glorious, and Ultimately Futile Self-Education

Oct. 22, 2013 • Nicholas Braun

Most Nikkei have the luxury of being brought up with the tradition of our fatherland. To be taught the meaning of Obon by your parents, a Buddhist priest, or both. To be read stories as a young child of a boy sprung up from peaches, tongueless sparrows. Or, if your parents were well read, to hear the fable of a young master from Tokyo known as Botchan bring a Machiavellian red shirted devil from the boondocks down with a well …