Interview with author Bruce Feiler on his time in Japan

Award-winning bestselling author, journalist, and—in his own words—“professional traveler” Bruce Feiler has been a writing books for nearly 20 years, the most recent of which focused on social issues and religion. Bruce’s new book, The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me, was inspired by his diagnosis with cancer two years ago. Faced with an uncertain future and concerned about his family, he asked six of his peers to form a “Council of Dads” to help guide his young daughters through their lives. Today, the Savannah native-turned-Brooklynite says he is cancer-free, and is currently on a national tour for the book, with his next appearance in New York City on May 4.

I spoke with Feiler about the start of his writing career, which began with Learning to Bow (1991), an account of his time living in Japan in the late 1980s as an English teacher on the venerable JET Programme, a government initiative that sens thousands of adults worldwide to Japan each year for work opportunities and to promote international exchange locally.

What made you want to write Learning to Bow?

It kind of grew out of a series of letters I wrote home of the “you’re not gonna believe what happened to me” variety. And when I went back to Savannah six months later, everywhere I went, people said, “I just loved your letters,” and I said, “Have we met?” It turned out that my grandmother had copied them, and they got passed from person to person—they went viral in the 1980s, if that’s the word—and I thought, wow, if that’s interesting to me and to these other people, I should write a book about it. It really was the sense that this story from this point of view wasn’t being told. In the 1980s, you couldn’t pick up a newspaper without reading an article about Japan or education, and the fact that here was a book that combined both, but had some sense of humor, I just think it was the right book at the right time, and I’m amazed and touched that, so many years later, for a lot of people, it’s the first book they read when they go to Japan…This was before the Internet, before e-mail, before blogs. The world seemed much bigger than it is today.

Have you returned to Japan since your time there as a teacher?

That’s a really good question, and the answer is no. I’ve kind of been to every place around it, but I’ve never been back to Japan. I keep looking for the right assignment, because I really want to go back and kind of write something, but I haven’t been back.

What kind of outlook did you take back home with you from your time in Japan?

People go to Japan today and they call me up, which still happens from time to time. I say the same thing that I’ve said for decades now, which is: don’t go over to Japan trying to change it, thinking that you know better. Go there trying to understand. I think that that essential way of experiencing another culture is by not going in as a sort of a haughty Westerner, looking down on it, but actually jumping into the deep end, completely immersed in yourself, befriending the people, and opening yourself up to the culture. That way of living is the thing that I would take from my experience, and pass on to my daughters today.

Have you thought about writing another book about Japan?

Sure, I would like in my life to go back and revisit that. I mean, we’re coming up on 25 years since I was living and working in Tochigi, and I would love the opportunity to go back, walk those streets, seek out friends, maybe some of those students, and use that as a prism to talk about how Japan has changed in the last quarter-century. I think that would be a great privilege, and if anybody reading this wants to send me on assignment, I’m ready to accept.

What was your best and worst memory of Japan?

I’d say my best memory was climbing Mt. Fuji, and the worst memory was…trying to fit my feet into the free giveaway slippers at Japanese schools.

Yeah, those are tough.

[Laughs] I haven’t thought about that in a long time.

What’s next for Bruce Feiler?

I don’t know…I’m actually sitting here at what looks like a Hollywood auction shaping up for The Council of Dads, and I guess my first priority is to keep myself healthy and be around for my girls, and to keep finding ways to travel and to tell stories.

Meet Bruce Feiler Tuesday, May 4 at 7:00 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, 150 East 86th Street (bet. 3rd Ave. and Lex) in Manhattan. Visit Bruce online at http://brucefeiler.com and http://www.councilofdads.com.

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