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[TECO]

This guy decided to write a book about his TEFL'ing life in Japan.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050416/BKSUSH16/TPEntertainment/Books

Found in translation

He's stuck in a job that isn't getting him anywhere, harassed by tax notices and student loan repayment demands. Toronto assaults him with "discomfort on public transportation, terror at making the rent, pollution, congestion and homeless crack addicts swearing at you." So, assured by a language-school recruiter that "they love weird, energetic foreigners," Jamie Schmidt flees to Japan.

There he finds as roommates two young men who reverse national stereotypes. Eldon is a small, unhappy, violent, alcoholic American, obsessive about germs and hygiene. Marcus, a huge Englishman with a shaved head and steel rings pierced through his nipples, is an amiable, easygoing, athletic type, yet also a teetotaller.

Settling into his job tutoring English in a town near Tokyo, Jamie encounters a world of cross-cultural wonders: American movie stars advertise canned iced coffees; "mystery pizzas" combine seafood, seaweed and mayonnaise. His students want to learn the lingo of hillbillies and gangster movies, or date Las Vegas showgirls. When a girl student he has started something with invites Jamie to "go play Bump of Chicken," he is, sadly, about to tell her he's been "playing bump of chicken with someone else" when he discovers that she has simply named a popular band.

Japan offers energy, "a seductive vibe . . . even the smells are sexy." Japanese culture and manners say you mustn't eat food in the street, but you can spit there. You must not wipe sweat from the back of your neck, but you can watch violent, bloody pornography on television, or purchase sex supplies, including the underwear of schoolgirls, from vending machines. "I had an old woman chase me down the street to give me a kleenex that had fallen out of my pocket," Jamie reports, phoning home. "The place is weird and fantastic at the same time."

Jamie falls, or drops, quickly and completely into love with Cassandra, a supervising teacher at the school, a woman with deep red fingernails and curly, "feral" hair. (She explains the curls: "It's the humidity. I don't have any control.") But she's a little standoffish and mysterious. "There's things you don't know about me," she warns, and the warning turns out to be justified. It doesn't stop Jamie. He's going to follow her "for the ride, because that's the only way to live, moving toward love and away from loss, but never giving up the fight for experiences."

This is the sort of novel that reads like a screenplay, carrying most of its weight in the dialogue. Payne continually tosses off good jokes, many of them one-liners funny in themselves, and funnier in context. A new roommate looks as if "he's combed his hair with a side of bacon," and turns out to be as committed to personal filthiness as his predecessor, Eldon, was passionate about annihilating germs. Jamie, described as "a nice guy," replies, "I don't see any point in being anything else," and characterizes himself as "very introverted for an extrovert," another quip that shows how wisecracks can be real wit, can give us something beyond yuk-yuk, something to think about. There's more to Schmidt than quick comebacks.

This novel could use some vigorous editing, starting with a less casual title and cover. "Sushi" serves of course as shorthand for "Japanese," but that particular style of food is seldom mentioned in Sushi Daze, and the title suggests a more superficial yarn than Payne's sharp-eyed social study.

Some language needs fine-tuning. Jamie thinks garbage goes down a "shoot," and that it ends up in a "tip." Maybe in Britain. Jamie's idiom is in fact often distinctly British, with no explanation. Some episodes and characters in the Toronto chapters contribute little to our sense of Schmidt and his aspirations, and a hiking race up Mt. Fuji, climactically placed, provides no important spiritual or worldly revelation for Jamie, no climax for the novel. Perhaps some things got into the book just because they happened to Rob Payne.

It's the characters -- roommates, teachers, friends and lovers -- who provide the longest, strongest threads in this deft and lively novel. It's a fine entertainment, with a substantial, detailed sense of contemporary Japan, and a touching, believable arc to its love story.

Mike Matthews lives on the West Coast, where he teaches English to Japanese students and to Canadian students who go to Japan to teach English. He is not skillful with chopsticks.