Memoirs of a Gaijin

Book excerpt: Hello from Japan. Not much new here. My four-year-olds attacked me, my crazy female stalkers jumped on the desk and professed their love for me, my depressed coworkers fist-fought each other at the all-you-can-drink karaoke bar, and I have no idea what I ate yesterday but it was uncooked and squishy. Pretty much the usual. What's new from home? Ben took the teaching job in Japan because he wasn't quite ready to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Instead, his efforts were put towards figuring out his new students, coworkers, and dinner. He is a "gaijin," the Japanese word for "foreigner." From festivals and temples to bicycles and cleaning supplies, Memoirs of a Gaijin: Emails from Japan is the one-year collection of emails and journals that chronicle Ben's experiences in the comedic and confusing country of Japan. "A witty, honest work. Ben Hesse's Memoirs of a Gaijin should be a required read for those college grads who are contemplating the increasingly popular first 'real life' step of teaching English abroad."-C.J. Renner, author of Tried to Say