Writers Coming of Age in East Asia 成熟禮故事

I have read quite a few “coming of age” stories 成熟禮故事 of Westerners who spent a year or two, maybe five, in some major city in East Asia 留在東亞洲國家的大城市. There is an account by Robert Twigger, who learned aikido through a rigorous course in the Tokyo riot police course. Next, I will read a similar account by Matthew Polly in China. I also read an account previously about a writer’s coming of age story in South Korea as well.

It seems as if the major cities of East Asia in the 1980s and 1990s were to young American and European writers 年輕的美國和西歐洲的作者 similar to what Paris must have been to a former generation in the 1920s像巴黎對1920時代的作者有那樣的環境. They were places where a new generation of writers were coming of age.

There was something about the environment that leant itself to that type of lifestyle. They were outsiders in a society that was very different from their own and there is a certain freedom to this. There were no expectations of behavior since they were not expected to fit in. Whether through martial arts or some other art form attractive to westerners, these expatriate writers could also participate in the culture. Cities such as Tokyo, Taipei, Beijing and Seoul provided an environment where expatriate life could flourish. Money was easy to come by through teaching English 容易靠教英文來賺錢, something that most were able to do. And there were plenty of places to spend that money on drinking, various types of esoteric lessons on culture and interesting, out-of-the-way places to visit.