TOKYOMANGO

How to keep pigeons away from your window

I recently discovered a pigeon nest near my bedroom window. I got rid of the nest, but the problem is that I don't really know how to keep them from coming back. I did write an entry in my book about how to keep pigeons from landing on your plants, but I'm not sure if this tip will be useful in my situation. If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know! I'm planning to hit up the hardware store this afternoon.

Yasuko Namba, once the oldest woman to climb Everest

While I was in Nepal, I read an incredible book by climber/journalist Jon Krakauer called Into Thin Air. It chronicles the events of an infamous Everest expedition in 1996 that left half a dozen people dead shortly after reaching the summit. Super sad, super amazing adventure story. One of the climbers who died was a 47-year old petite Japanese woman named Yasuko Namba. She was a graduate of Waseda University and worked on the business side of FedEx in Japan, but her real passion was climbing. That spring, she left her husband behind and took off to climb Everest on the same expedition with Krakauer, led by a famous guide who also died on the mountain.

Did you know that the first two women in the world to successfully climb the Seven Summits were both Japanese? The first was Junko Tabei, who climbed Everest with an all-female expedition sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Nihon Television. She passed out unconscious for several minutes before arriving at the top of Everest in 1975. Tabei is still alive today; she doesn't climb as much as she used to, but she's the head of the Himalayan Adventure Trust of Japan.

Namba was the second woman to complete this feat, but she didn't make it back alive. In fact, she died lost and alone in a freezing cold blizzard. Her death is written about in a lot of detail in Into Thin Air. She obviously had an amazing spirit and an incredible amount of guts. I'm sure everyone who ascends Everest does so knowing that they may not make it down alive. Still, I finished the book wishing someone had made a better effort to save her.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

Tokyo Vice, a book about an American journalist on the yakuza hit list

I just finished reading Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan. It's a new book written by a guy named Jake Adelstein. If you haven't seen his byline, it's probably because he spent over a decade as a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun — the Japanese version, that is. The book kicks off with funny stories of how Adelstein came to Japan to study Buddhism but ended up studying his ass off to pass the Japanese language reporter exam. Miraculously, he gets accepted and is thrown into detective-like work on the police and crime beats in the Tokyo area. Through anecdotes of his own mishaps as the only foreigner among all his Japanese colleagues and sources, we get some fun insights on Japanese culture. But the book also takes us deep into the world of Japanese crime beat reporting, illuminating the relationships among the police force and the yakuza and the media. It's interesting — you hear bits and pieces of this stuff on the news and in academic papers, but it's much more fun to read a first person account of someone who was really there. Towards the end, the book takes on a much scarier tone as Adelstein gets wrapped up in some serious yakuza conspiracies — I won't go into detail here, but the threats that Adelstein faces are real and present, and he doesn't sleep well at night.

I actually had the pleasure of meeting Adelstein yesterday; we and Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times hung out over Peking Duck and drinks in Roppongi. He is as fun and crazy as he appears to be in the book, which is a good thing. I should also mention that the writing is superb — I start reading a lot of books about Japan written by non-Japanese people, but rarely do I finish them out of anything other than a sense of obligation. This one, though, had me hooked to the end.

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein = 5/5

TokyoMango's holiday gift guide (books!)

If you're a last-minute holiday gift shopper like me and you're looking for something to get for your favorite/least favorite niece/cousin/uncle/sibling... why not get them a decent Japan book? Here are some recommendations:

The history geek...
John Dower's Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II is a crucial volume in understanding US-Japan relations in the post-WW2 era. It's also a fun read even if you're not a history geek.

The aspiring novelist...
Anything by Haruki Murakami is always a delight, and if you haven't read his stuff, you should do so, like, right now. One of my favorites was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; I also really enjoyed Kafka on the Shore and South of the Border, West of the Sun.

Urawaza is a great holiday gift! Buy it.

It's been a while since I pimped my book Urawaza on TokyoMango, but I really think you should buy it for someone — your mom, your brother, your friend, a White Elephant party — for the holidays. It's green and red, colors reminiscent of Christmas Trees and Santa hats, it's not heavy reading, you'll learn lots of cool quirky tricks, and it's 30% off on Amazon and at Chronicle Books' web site with the discount code Family — which brings the grand total cost to about $10. Totally affordable holiday fun!

Buy Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan