Hitching Rides With the Buddha - Softcover

Ferguson, Will

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841957852 ISBN 13: 9781841957852

Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd, 2006

Synopsis

Take a humorist from the Great White North — one part Bob and Doug McKenzie, the other Bill Bryson — feed him lots of sake, and set him loose hitchhiking his way through polite Japanese society. The result is one of the warmest and funniest travelogues you've read. It had never been done before. Not in four thousand years of Japanese recorded history had anyone followed the Cherry Blossom Front from one end of the country to the other. Nor had anyone hitchhiked the length of Japan. And, as Ferguson learns, it illustrates that to travel is better than to arrive.

About this title

Review

Praise for "Hitching Rides with Buddha:
"The road book of the year. . . A warm-hearted account with a generous helping of satire."
--"The Daily Telegraph
"A mild stroke of genius. . . Savagely hilarious."
--"Sunday Herald
"You trust both his humour and his insights. . . . An admirable pair of eyes through which to see contemporary Japan."
--"The Observer
"I enjoyed Hitching Rides with Buddha immensely. Will Ferguson is a very gifted writer."
--Bill Bryson
Praise for "Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw:
"Ferguson's strength does not lie in whether he writes funny or not. His strength is that he writes so well."
--"Times Colonist (Victoria)
"Yet another masterfully entertaining examination of Canuckishness penned by the Calgary author. . . . Ferguson's fascination with Canadiana is infectious."
--"Calgary Herald
"Full of surprises . . . and idiosyncratic charms. . . . Travel writers don't always get to climb Everest or visit the Taj Mahal, and they can be judged best by what they come up with on a slow day. Ferguson is good when he's sipping a handful of icy water out of Hudson Bay; he's better eating pancakes in a Finnish restaurant in Thunder Bay."
--"National Post
"Lively storytelling . . . Artful descriptions of the Canadian landscape."
--"The Globe and Mail
"Will Ferguson is a talent. He writes refreshingly, provocatively and eloquently. . . . He looks for the essence and his search brings out some smashingly insightful stuff."
--"Ottawa Citizen

From the Inside Flap

Originally published as Hokkaido Highway Blues, with limited distribution in Canada, Will Ferguson's classic book about Japan, for all fans of the bestselling Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw.
With the same fervour they have for outlandish game shows and tiny gadgets, the Japanese go nuts each spring when the cherry blossoms sweep from island to island towards the country's northerly tip. Will Ferguson was celebrating the event in the standard fashion. And after way too much sake he announced he would be the first person in recorded history to follow the blossom's progress end to end. To make it a challenge worth doing, he'd hitchhike all the way: relying on the kindness of some very weird and wonderful strangers.
Mixing his penchant for biting observation with wicked humour, Ferguson starts at the southernmost tip of Cape Sata and heads north for distant Hokkaido. Whether he is doing the forbidden and not knowing it, or holding "conversations by non sequitur," it is a journey full of misadventures and revelations. The resulting travelogue is one of the funniest and most illuminating books ever written about Japan.

"To make matters worse, I decided to hitchhike. Striking a heroic stance, I declared my intention to my Japanese friends to become the first person ever to hitchhike the length of Japan, end-to-end, cape-to-cape, sea-to-sea. This did not impress them as much as I had hoped.
"Why would you want to do that?" they asked, genuinely puzzled. "There is no reason to hitchhike. That's why we built the Bullet Train."
Others worried about my safety. "But," I would argue, "Japan is a very safe country, is it not?"
"Oh, yes. Very safe. Safest in the world."
"So whyshouldn't I hitchhike?"
"Because Japan is dangerous."
And so on.
Now, I will admit that mooching rides across Japan is not a major achievement -- I mean, it's not like I paddled up the Amazon or discovered insulin or anything -- but I am the first person ever to do this, so allow me my hubris.
When I left my home in Minamata City aboard a southbound train, I felt suitably bold with my backpack and muscular thumb.
"I'm going to hitchhike the length of Japan," I told the man beside me.
He smiled and nodded.
"I'm going to follow the cherry blossoms."
He nodded.
"All the way to Russia," I said.
He smiled again, and soon after changed seats.
--from Hitching Rides with Buddha

Edition details

• Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1841957852
• ISBN 13: 9781841957852
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 410