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    Tune In Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries
    Tune In Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries
    Tune In Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries
    Audiobook8 hours

    Tune In Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries

    Written by Tim Anderson

    Narrated by MacLeod Andrews

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run – run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don’t understand anything and won’t be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan. It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn’t speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind his boyfriend, his cat, and his Siouxsie and the Banshees box set to move to “a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people who make him look fat”? In Tokyo, Tim became a “gaijin,” an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen hilarious stories. Despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way. Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it’s invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected…right when he least expects it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 25, 2012
    ISBN9781469200996
    Tune In Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries
    Author

    Tim Anderson

    Tim Anderson has done many amazing things in his life. Well, two amazing things. OK, one thing that he did twice. But he’s got nothing on his older brother, who can play his teeth like a xylophone with his thumb. As for Tim, he is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he was inducted into both Phi Beta Kappa and the Golden Key National Honor Society. (These honors have yet to pay off.) He has worked as a waiter, a data-entry clerk, a photocopier repairman, a freelance writer, a music editor, a middle-school teacher, and a depressed employee of the state of North Carolina. He dreams of one day being an underwear model/bookie. Until then, he will keep working as an editor and living in Brooklyn with his boyfriend, his cat Stella, and his viola, which he plays in the band Simple Shapes. To learn more about Tim, visit his blog at seetimblog.blogspot.com or the Tune in Tokyo website, www.tuningintokyo.com.

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    Reviews for Tune In Tokyo

    3/5

    60 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I bought this on a whim when it was on sale via one of Amazon's Kindle Daily Deals. I'm very happy with the book.

      The story is about an aimless young man who decides to teach English in Japan and certainly has some preconceptions about the country. Each chapter tends to have a theme and you can see his opinions change over time. It's quite funny at times and it's interesting to read how he's perceived and his perceptions of the culture.
    • 4/5
      As a travel narrative, this book’s success or failure depends on the likability of its narrator. I’m on the fence about Tim, and so I’m on the fence about this book.My first impression of Tim was very negative. You know that gay guy who is too loud, too flamboyant, and just SO gay it’s obnoxious? At the very beginning, that was Tim. The first few chapters dragged because he was irritatingly dramatic and seemed to equate swearing with humor. Though he improved as the book went on, there were times I hated him because he was the gaijin that gives us all of us a bad name—the loud American who can’t speak any Japanese, the one who gets high every weekend, the one stumbling drunk through the subway. These were the times when the book just skimmed the surface of Tokyo and didn’t attempt to dip below it. Tim could have been in any city anywhere in the world and the story would have been the same.Thankfully, that wasn’t the whole book. Tim was not afraid to make fun of himself, which kept the narrative from being too high-and-mighty. There were times that he was genuinely, laugh-out-loud funny, due largely in part to the fact that his swearing began to complement the humor rather than trying to act as a substitute for it. I was relieved when Tim eventually DID make some Japanese friends and make an effort at learning the language, and I found these parts of the book drew me in the most. For what it’s worth, Tim also seemed like a decent teacher who put effort into his classes, not one who just skimmed by so he could keep his visa.All in all, this is quick, fairly humorous read that is worth picking up for the chapter about the crazy roommate ALONE. However, it often doesn’t take full advantage of its fascinating setting. I’d recommend Hokkaido Highway Blues for those looking for a more substantial cultural chronicle of a gaijin’s experience in Japan.
    • 2/5
      The entire time I read Tune in Tokyo, I was wondering why I wasn't enjoying it more. It would have made a good blog, probably, and I can see it working as a series of email updates to friends, but as a book it's disjointed and feels repetitive.

      Really, I think the main problem here is that I don't click with Anderson's style. He makes sweeping generalizations and uses strange turns of phrase ("Yasuko's eyelids dim") and talks about drinking and recreational drug use but somehow makes both boring. It just all made me want to roll my eyes a lot! And then I felt mean because he seems like a decent enough dude underneath it all, but comes off as self-involved and spoiled in Tune in Tokyo. That's probably a hazard that comes with publishing something that IS essentially a diary, after all.

      If you enjoy Anderson's sense of humor and voice (maybe try the Kindle sample first?), you'll probably enjoy this book, as long as you don't into it expecting a travel memoir: this is a book about Anderson, not about Japan.


      *************

      TOTALLY IRRELEVANT FAVORITE TYPO: "Stationary" instead of "stationery," more than once. This is always one of my favorite typos, but it made me giggle more than usual when Anderson discussed a washi paper store . . . "For me, it's a big pile of 'meh,' but those who are into stationary had better fasten their seatbelts."