Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei

An American poet of Japanese descent, Mura first went to Japan in 1984, to live in Tokyo for a year with his wife. He learned Japanese, studied Noh and Butoh dance, traveled and found himself receptive to aspects of a culture that many Americans have found off-putting. A record of his observations, this volume is imbued with a youthful, exploratory tone that takes on greater seriousness as Mura realizes that in the U.S. he had labored under a subtle discrimination. Amid ``thousands of faces that look like mine'' he discovers a sudden, heady sense of belonging. Yet ultimately this is his working-through of what it means to be an Asian who feels more at home in America than in his ancestral country (``too rule-oriented, too polite, too circumscribed''). Mura's effort is not without flaws--the dialogue can be awkward and the book, at 370 pages, would have profited from tightening. But it seems an honest account, and is at all times interesting. (Mar.)