The Many Roads to Japan: A Search for Identity

The Many Roads to Japan: A Search for Identity, Robert W. Norris, 2002

John Banks is your average American teenager who, upon reaching 18 years of age, registers for the military draft. He gets a very low draft number. The thought of killing another human being while in the Army is repulsive to him, so he starts thinking about alternatives. He joins the Air Force, having been assured that he will never have to carry a gun.

He goes to Texas for basic training, where he begins to realize that this was a very bad idea. After more training in Texas, he is sent to an air base in California, where he has been assigned the job of guarding B-52 bombers as a military policeman (MP). So much for never carrying a gun. Later, he is given 30 days leave, then told to go back to Texas, on his way to Southeast Asia.

Instead, John returns to California and registers as a conscientious objector. He is sentenced to 6 months in prison, during which many attempts are made to get him to feel like a criminal for refusing to go to war. While in prison, he gets an angry letter from his father, disowning him and calling him a coward.

After getting out of prison, John goes back to California and gets a job at a lumber mill in Humboldt County. He even tries a couple of semesters at the local junior college. Feeling isolated and alienated from everyone around him, and America in general, he hitchhikes across America, and flies to Europe, where he backpacks for the next several months.

In Paris, he meets Hamid and Abdul, a couple of Persian carpet traders. Hamid tells John that jobs for foreigners are plentiful in Iran, his homeland. The two undertake a harrowing car journey through southeast Europe, Turkey and Iran. Harrowing because Hamid drives like an insane person, darting in and out of traffic, creating his own travel lanes when necessary and with one hand always on the car horn. After spending time in Iran, John continues to Afghanistan, where he again meets up with Abdul. John continues on to India, where he witnesses poverty and human degradation on an unimaginable scale.

Back in America, John tries his hand at being a writer, though it doesn't work very well. Seized with wanderlust once again, John hears about jobs available for foreigners teaching English in Japan. He goes there, and, after a couple of years, when he has to decide whether or not to apply for a permanent resident visa, decides to stay in Japan.

This book is written in simplified English, and questions at the end of each chapter make it a very good choice for people learning English. Aside from that, it's a very fast read and a good tale of one person's search for identity. It's well worth reading.