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| Kayak and Land Journeys in Ainu Mosir: Among the Ainu of Hokkaido | 
| List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $10.65
You Save: $6.30 (37%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 1 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1566149
Category: Book
Author: Guy De La Rupelle
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Studio: iUniverse, Inc.
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
Label: iUniverse, Inc.
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 0
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.6
ISBN: 0595346448
Dewey Decimal Number: 915
EAN: 9780595346448
ASIN: 0595346448
Publication Date: July 28, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Kayak and Land Journeys in Ainu Mosir takes the reader into Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido. The native inhabitants called this island Ainu Mosir, which means People of the Quiet Land. Guy de la Rupelle after having been to Hokkaido several times by motorcycle and meeting furtively these Ainu decides to take a longer look at who they are exactly and their current situation. To give a sense of purpose to his journey he packs two folding kayaks in his car, all his camping gear and spends six weeks meeting as many Ainu as he can, camps and paddles in the lakes, rivers and along the coastline of this amazing island, certainly the last wilderness left in Japan. It has been said that a good travel book is one in which the reader will discover new things as he travels with the writer. This is certainly the case. The reader will get a better sense of who the Ainu are through their voices as well as read about a part of Japan seldom written about by Westerners.
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| Customer Reviews:
Much-needed book regarding the Ainu August 30, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am interested about aboriginal peoples of the world and while it is not too difficult to find books pertaining to the Native Americans of North America, the Aborigines of Australia, Polynesians, and even the Inuit, I am surprised by how little there is (in print) about the native inhabitants of Japan, the Ainu. The author make mention of that fact in his introduction, and in a journalistic approach, meets, talks to and interviews quite a number of Ainu which paints a pretty good picture of how they feel, how they live and how they've been touched by Japan's modernization.
I am not a kayak enthusiast but Guy has a way of taking the reader along in the chapters in which he describes his kayaking trips and describes nicely the creatures he sees, though his bitterness over some aspects of Japan's post-war attempts at over-modernization sometimes sours the mood (his description of miles of seacoast being built-up with "tetrapods" -a word I hadn't heard of before - huge concrete wave-breakers, is depressing) and spoils the Japan one imagines. The last part of the book was useless for me, but could be useful to the traveller to Japan as it's full of trivia regarding the kayaks he used, the kind of food available, the method of camping and outdoor cooking, otherwise I'd recommend the book to anyone interested in Hokkaido in general, the Ainu in contemporary Japan and anyone potentially interested in kayaking there.
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