{"id":4065,"date":"2004-02-06T17:22:32","date_gmt":"2004-02-06T21:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=4065"},"modified":"2015-08-17T10:48:45","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T14:48:45","slug":"my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/","title":{"rendered":"My Name is Sei Shonagon by Jan Blensdorf [in AsianWeek]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2004\/02\/My-Name-Is-Sei-Shonagon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-31649\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2004\/02\/My-Name-Is-Sei-Shonagon.jpg\" alt=\"My Name Is Sei Shonagon\" width=\"315\" height=\"475\" \/><\/a>What\u2019s wrong with this picture? An Australian journalist spends two years living in Tokyo and writes her first novel, which the PR materials refer to as \u201can intoxicating addition to the literature of Japan.\u201d It\u2019s not even written in Japanese and the un-Japanese author presumably doesn\u2019t know the historical difference between the two alphabet systems, katakana and hiragana, not to mention the editors that don\u2019t catch her mistake. As it is, <em>Name<\/em> is about a hapa Japanese American girl who goes to Japan with her widowed mother, to a very restrictive (and abusive) existence in the home of her maternal uncle. As a young woman, she inherits an incense factory, becomes a confessor of sorts to lonely men behind a screen, refuses to give her name and uses the Sei Shonagon moniker instead. She has a bad marriage along the way, from which she escapes. And it\u2019s all told through the unnecessary framing device of her being in a hospital bed and recalling her life in silence. Go figure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/2004-02-06-new-and-notable1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">&#8220;New and Notable Books,&#8221; <em>AsianWeek<\/em>, February 6, 2004<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2003<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4077\" title=\"My Name is Sei Shonagon\" src=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com\/files\/2009\/07\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon.jpg\" alt=\"My Name is Sei Shonagon\" width=\"127\" height=\"193\" \/>What\u2019s wrong with this picture? An Australian journalist spends two years living in Tokyo and writes her first novel, which the PR materials refer to as \u201can intoxicating addition to the literature of Japan.\u201d It\u2019s not even written in Japanese and the un-Japanese author presumably doesn\u2019t know the historical difference between the two alphabet systems, katakana and hiragana, not to mention the editors that don\u2019t catch her mistake. As it is, <em>Name<\/em> is about a hapa Japanese American girl who goes to Japan with her widowed mother, to a very restrictive (and abusive) existence in the home of her maternal uncle. As a young woman, she inherits an incense factory, becomes a confessor of sorts to lonely men behind a screen, refuses to give her name and uses the Sei Shonagon moniker instead. She has a bad marriage along the way, from which she escapes. And it\u2019s all told through the unnecessary framing device of her being in a hospital bed and recalling her life in silence. Go figure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com\/files\/2009\/07\/2004-02-06-new-and-notable1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;New and Notable Books,&#8221; <em>AsianWeek<\/em>, February 6, 2004<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2003<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,225,6,197,76,6535],"tags":[3598,6608,58,59,10,51,25,4502,145,129,4503,39],"class_list":["post-4065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-australian","category-fiction","category-hapa","category-japanese","category-repost","tag-asianweek","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-family","tag-identity","tag-immigration","tag-jan-blensdorf","tag-mixed-race-issues","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-my-name-is-sei-shonagon","tag-parent-child-relationship"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My Name is Sei Shonagon by Jan Blensdorf [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Name is Sei Shonagon by Jan Blensdorf [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What\u2019s wrong with this picture? An Australian journalist spends two years living in Tokyo and writes her first novel, which the PR materials refer to as \u201can intoxicating addition to the literature of Japan.\u201d It\u2019s not even written in Japanese and the un-Japanese author presumably doesn\u2019t know the historical difference between the two alphabet systems, katakana and hiragana, not to mention the editors that don\u2019t catch her mistake. As it is, Name is about a hapa Japanese American girl who goes to Japan with her widowed mother, to a very restrictive (and abusive) existence in the home of her maternal uncle. As a young woman, she inherits an incense factory, becomes a confessor of sorts to lonely men behind a screen, refuses to give her name and uses the Sei Shonagon moniker instead. She has a bad marriage along the way, from which she escapes. And it\u2019s all told through the unnecessary framing device of her being in a hospital bed and recalling her life in silence. Go figure.  Review: &quot;New and Notable Books,&quot; AsianWeek, February 6, 2004  Readers: Adult  Published: 2003\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-02-06T21:22:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T14:48:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2004\/02\/My-Name-Is-Sei-Shonagon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"315\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"475\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"My Name is Sei Shonagon by Jan Blensdorf [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"My Name is Sei Shonagon by Jan Blensdorf [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon","og_description":"What\u2019s wrong with this picture? An Australian journalist spends two years living in Tokyo and writes her first novel, which the PR materials refer to as \u201can intoxicating addition to the literature of Japan.\u201d It\u2019s not even written in Japanese and the un-Japanese author presumably doesn\u2019t know the historical difference between the two alphabet systems, katakana and hiragana, not to mention the editors that don\u2019t catch her mistake. As it is, Name is about a hapa Japanese American girl who goes to Japan with her widowed mother, to a very restrictive (and abusive) existence in the home of her maternal uncle. As a young woman, she inherits an incense factory, becomes a confessor of sorts to lonely men behind a screen, refuses to give her name and uses the Sei Shonagon moniker instead. She has a bad marriage along the way, from which she escapes. And it\u2019s all told through the unnecessary framing device of her being in a hospital bed and recalling her life in silence. Go figure.  Review: \"New and Notable Books,\" AsianWeek, February 6, 2004  Readers: Adult  Published: 2003","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2004-02-06T21:22:32+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-17T14:48:45+00:00","og_image":[{"width":315,"height":475,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2004\/02\/My-Name-Is-Sei-Shonagon.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/","name":"My Name is Sei Shonagon by Jan Blensdorf [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-02-06T21:22:32+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-17T14:48:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/my-name-is-sei-shonagon-by-jan-blensdorf\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"My Name is Sei Shonagon by Jan Blensdorf [in AsianWeek]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4065"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39116,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4065\/revisions\/39116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}