Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan

Japan Book Review: Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan

ISBN: 978-1-61172-082-2
Stone Bridge Press, 2023
308 pp; paperback

After traversing the full length of Hokkaido, Honshu (Japan's main island) and Kyushu along the Japan Sea by train, John Dougill has skillfully written about what he felt, saw and experienced during his exploits. His travels are reminiscent of authors Alan Booth, who walked the length of Japan, and Will Ferguson, who hitch-hiked the length of Japan. Each later wrote about his undertaking. Booth's The Roads to Sata (1985) is considered a classic, and Ferguson's Hokkaido Highway Blues: Hitchhiking Japan (1998) is another much-loved book.

Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan

As much as possible, Dougill travelled by local trains, making 30 stops from Wakanai (Hokkaido) in the north to Ibusuki (Kagoshima) in the south. It took him three months as he traveled during the early days of the COVID pandemic.

Mixing food, culture, society and relevant local and national history, Dougill gives the reader a good feel for this part of Japan. Like most travel experiences, the best parts are encounters talking with the local people, whose lives and interests are only tangentially related to the Japan of Pokemon, Kabukicho, skyscrapers, and cosplay.

The cities he explored on his trip often had connections to either China, Korea or, occasionally, Russia, owing to the fact that his trip was along a route which faces those countries.

The writing is breezy and filled with interesting tidbits that even true Japanophiles may not know. For example:

The first Westerner to teach English in Japan was the evocatively named Ranald (cq) McDonald, who snuck into the country in 1848, a time when foreigners were killed or imprisoned for the offence of entering Japan without permission. He pretended to have been shipwrecked, and was eventually returned to America.
It is said that shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's love for dogs was a factor in "virtually bankrupting" Japan, a bit of an exaggeration, but an interesting morsel of history nonetheless.
There are four major gaijin (foreigner) cemeteries in Japan; in Hakodate, Kobe, Nagasaki and Yokohama, all of which were treaty ports.

Dougill's perspective might be a bit different than others who have written about these kinds of travels. Whereas most full-length-of-Japan travel writers are in their 20s and 30s, Dougill was around 60. He quotes sage advice that he had heard: "Write about Japan after three weeks or 30 years."; If you have been in Japan a long time, you'll probably understand and agree with this.

Readers might have two minor quibbles with the book; the first being that there are no captions on any of the more than 20 full-page pictures. The maps showing where the author travelled are, however, helpful. Secondly, the author, as is his right, dips his toes into political pronouncements several times. This is fine if you agree with him, not so much if you don't.

This work isn't just for those who know Japan well. Everybody will enjoy Dougill's adventures and misadventures. The pace of the book is just right, not hurried at all. The reader will feel like he/she is on a relaxing yet educational trip through a fascinating, yet rarely-traveled part of Japan.

Review by Marshall Hughes.

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