THE REAL JAPAN?
“Jona-san” Rauch’s “Just Another Ordinary Different Place” (March 8) was brilliant. It should be inserted in the Congressional Record and its message subliminally imposed on every American brain, by computer virus or some such means.
The paragraphs on shoganai (“it can’t be helped”), punishment for the overbilling dry cleaner, Platonian Japan, and the men-as-lions and women-as-lambs version of sexual equality are classic. Rauch’s recommendation for future Japan-America relations is a prayer that should be international law.
GLENN T. WEBB
DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF ASIAN CULTURE
PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY
Malibu
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
