Travel Osaka With a Kiwi Teacher : Kathika Travel Website

You’ll get a great taste of the wonders of Japan by reading Under the Osakan Sun by Hamish Beaton, a young New Zealander who spent three years working as a high school English teacher in Kanan town, an outlying suburb of Osaka.

Beaton writes his memoir in a captivating way, joining his series of adventures together nicely and following his gradually increasing understanding of Japan chronologically through his years there. As a reasonably fluent Japanese speaker who had studied the Japanese language and culture for eight years before he arrived, he’s able to get information from the locals that is normally hidden from the average tourist.

Rather than hitting a large number of famous sightseeing spots, Beaton’s stories center more on the unique culture and personality of the Japanese. He becomes a minor celebrity in the town where he lives and works, and meets locals who want to share their pornography collection with him, take him to hot springs to bathe naked and almost fight over which float he can join in the local parades. He also describes the Japanese school system through examples of the students and experiences he has at the junior high school he’s assigned to. As pre-reading before a trip to Japan, it’s one of the best books around to give you an insight into what life in Japan is actually like.