A Trip Back to Asia

About the Book

A Trip Back to Asia is a collection of short stories, including the cover story by the same title. Most of the episodes depict the Japanese culture and customs as well as Japanese people’s nature and conduct in various contexts either in Japan or in the U.S.. The summary of each story is as follows:

Grass Is Greener on the Other Side

A globetrotting businessman returns to his hometown for the first time in twenty years to attend a high-school reunion party. Then, at the gateway to his hometown, he walks into his childhood friend who built his new house on a detached plot of land near the rice paddies. The two childhood friends start to share what they have been through either in the city or the country. The young businessman who moved to a big city after high school recounts his own great experiences in urban life and, at the same time, appreciates what he has missed during his absence back in the land of abundant space, greenery, and peace and quiet.

A Trip Back to Asia

Tetsuo, a promising, young engineer who is engaged to marry in a few months, returns from his business trip to the U.S., and, only a few days later, he receives an unexpected visit by his friend. The visitor is a Korean American girl whom he met during his stay in the U.S.. During his trip, she indicated her desire to travel in Japan in the future. He is delighted—although a little surprised—at her visit which came far sooner than he had expected. Then, while he is showing her around the city of Tokyo, he begins to learn about the true purpose of her trip back to Asia. During train rides and at places that they stop at, she narrates her personal backgrounds and the serious problem that she is facing. Regarding his own position parallel to hers, he soon finds himself seriously contemplating his own way of life—and the true values of love, cultures, and ethnic identity.

The Last Fortress

A housing developer tries to buy out an entire block of land in Yokote-cho in order to build a modern housing complex. Most of the residents agree to vacate their small, dilapidated houses built half a century before as the developer offers a reasonable amount of compensation. However, one old man, who lives a lonely life by himself, stubbornly refuses to sell his house and land area. Frustrated at a delay in construction work, the developer hires yakuza gangsters and starts to intimidate him, which leads to an unexpected turn of events.

Cardboard Box

Tsuyoshi was an arrogant, egocentric man who lived in his own heavens. As the owner of a publishing company, he treated his employees like slaves and behaved like a dictator. However, mishandling a minor incidence with a student worker, he loses his business, home, and family and turns into a pavement dweller. His homeless life starts as a temporary shelter to evade the chasing moneylenders’ eyes, but it soon becomes his permanent position, and even in the homeless community, his selfish behavior begins to offend other members, which eventually lands him in serious trouble.

A New Perspective

A young high-school teacher bursting with energy and enthusiasm is, one day, challenged by his own students to an unusual deal: will he, as an English teacher, be able to handle the huge loads of mathematics and science homework that the students are assigned? To everybody’s surprise, he stands up to the teenagers’ challenge and declares that he will finish all the math and science programs for the senior students. Students’ and the faculty’s reactions differ from person to person. Then, he later announces an even drastic decision to surprise all at the school.

Prussian Carp

A man who lives and works on a busy schedule in a big city reminisces about his childhood days back in his hometown. One day when he was a pre-school child, a huge school of Prussian Carp was washed down a water conduit for irrigation, and adult villagers rushed t

About the Author

Yoshimasa Ogawa was born in Nara Prefecture, Japan. He studied at Waseda University in Tokyo and at San Jose State University in California. Currently, he is a professor at Showa Women’s University and is the author of Bimbogami, another collection of short stories.