Don't read "Ash" if you're a jaded expatriate pining for a ticket home. Don't give a copy to an idealistic friend considering the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. Above all, don't lend it to Japanese acquaintances keen to discover what foreigners really think about aspects of life in this country.
The year is 1985 and our heroine Caitlin Ober, into her second year of an English-teaching program, has hit what foreign residents will recognize as a major downer. Well written though "Ash" is, it doesn't make for easy reading.
Caitlin meticulously logs all the small grievances that, trivial in themselves, cumulatively have expats unearthing their suitcase and checking their return ticket. Children at the Kagoshima schools where Caitlin teaches "giggle the same inane bits of English .T.T. countless times every day"; a boorish oyaji asks if her pubic hair is as blonde as the hair on her head; she finds "the idea of using the shared bathroom repugnant, with all those women flushing over and over so no one could hear the sound of them urinating."