Twenty years after coming to America to escape the debacle at home, Wolf is in the middle of a successful career when a thought trips him up: What if he dies at forty? After one decade in survival mode and another decade in success mode, what's his purpose now? Stunned, he quits his job and goes to France to open himself up to new possibilities. But instead of answers, he finds Izumi. Her bubbly enthusiasm about Japan grips him; the idea of Asia fascinates him. And during their one night together, he decides to visit her in Tokyo, but via the South Pacific-now that he's thinking about other parts of the world. BIG LIKE is the startling, funny, cynical, and culturally intense account of an almost regular guy who ends up on a deliciously slippery slope. There's his time with Ginger in Fiji's mix of Third World and tropical paradise. Then in New Zealand, they rappel into a sinkhole, crawl through caves, and bungee jump into a canyon. But even Ginger's deadpan humor can't overcome the undercurrents of their lives: she wants to start a family; he wants to roam. Solo, he hooks through Australia and Bali on the backpacker trail. When he makes it to Tokyo, he smacks into Japan's insular culture, impenetrable language, and obsession with unspoken rules. He struggles with inscrutable complexities: love hotels, packed trains, Korean roommates, irresistible food. Everything is hard, even buying hemorrhoid ointment. That's the backdrop to the utterly confounding experience of a gaijin who wants to roam the world but gets tangled up with a Japanese girl. And the slippery slope turns into a life-changing odyssey.
About the Author: Wolf Richter has twenty years of C-level operations and finance experience, including turnaround situations and startups. He lived in six countries, in fascinating places like Tokyo, Paris, New York, Brussels, and yes, Wichita Falls, TX, to name but a few. But one day, he decided to quit his job as COO and go to France for seven weeks to open himself up to new possibilities--a trip that degenerated into a life-altering three-year journey across 100 countries on all continents, much of it overland. And it almost swallowed him up. Currently in San Francisco, he is involved with startups and pours his cynicism and humor into his blog, www.testosteronepit.com "where the truth comes home to roost," musing on economic and financial issues, cultural phenomena, Wall Street shenanigans, mysterious foods, and other things that catch his eye in the US, Europe, Japan, and occasionally China.