Barry Finds No Competition In Japan

When humor writer Dave Barry decided to take his irreverence overseas, he picked the most humorless, scariest country he could think of.

The result is "Dave Barry Does Japan" (Random House, $18), a frequently hilarious and cheerfully Politically Incorrect comparison of two countries that has all the subtlety of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.

"I ended up respecting Japan more than liking it," Barry mused at the start of a book-tour day in Seattle that meant nine appearances over 12 hours, including a benefit lecture last night for the Family Literacy Program of the Seattle Library.

During a three-week visit to Japan with his wife, Beth, and son, Robby, Barry said he was particularly relieved by the apparent lack of competition from the "Japanese humor industry."

"I think we should develop jokes for export," Barry said, who also proposes trading American baseball players for Japanese car-making robots.

While the syndicated Miami Herald columnist (who appears Monday in The Times) said he has gone three or four consecutive minutes during visits to Europe not making a fool of himself, "in Japan I never came close. I was a complete water buffalo every minute. We were bigger and dumber than anyone in the entire country, including the children and dogs. Fortunately the Japanese were quite tolerant of us because we're such complete idiots."

Barry's book reminds us that a reader is regularly forced to choose between serious books on important issues and books that make you laugh so hard your beer squirts through your nose.

But even when Barry has you wheezing for oxygen and mopping up because of his analysis of World War II movies, plastic food, Japanese politeness and pubic hair, he sneaks in this 13th book some blunt or sly observations that cut to the heart of the complex Japan-U.S. relationship. Like all good humor writers, he is a keen observer.

"Japan's success doesn't seem miraculous to me," he said here, summarizing a theme his book. "They work harder. There's little crime, and they don't even play boom boxes too loud. They take a tremendous amount of responsibility for their own actions. There is so much less self-pity than in America."

On the other hand, "The Japanese could stand to lighten up," he adds in his book. He was relieved to find a "Hipness Gap" with America firmly in the lead.

Yet despite the ritual, conformity and self-containment of Japan, Barry doesn't think the peoples of both countries are nearly as different as either believe. He thinks the emphasis on the foreignness of customs and rules misses the point. "That makes it easier for everyone to hate each other," he said.

The book turns serious, but not maudlin, in his visit to Hiroshima where Barry has a candid middle-American reaction: horror, regret, and irritation that the Japanese museum never mentions the aggression that started the war in the first place.

Otherwise Barry pokes fun at the Japanese, Americans and himself with equal gusto, relying on incisive journalistic notes such as "Corn in Pizza!?!"

Back in the USA, Dave Barry is 45, lives in Miami, writes at home, takes his son to school and shops for groceries. He tries to retain his regular-guy sensibility despite fame that brings him 300 to 500 letters a week. "I get lots of humor columns. It seems to me that every other lawyer secretly wants to be a humor columnist. Them, and every 8th grade boy."

When he recently asked readers to nominate the worst rock songs of all time, "I think more people responded than voted for Ross Perot."

His wife, who works as an editor for the Herald, "hates being Mrs. Dave Barry A LOT," Barry noted. He tries to limit the Mr. Famous Column Person intrusion, never being interviewed at home.

He dismisses the effect on his humor of his father becoming an alcoholic and then recovering late in life, his mother committing suicide after his father's death, and his sister's diagnosis for schizophrenia.

Barry said he had a happy childhood, got his sense of humor from his mother, and has had no more tragedy than most people. "The line in features became, `He's smiling through his tears,' " he recalled. "It drove me crazy."

He calls himself "a real deep shallow reader" who devours newspapers and magazines. "I just don't read anything good," Barry said.

So after tackling Japan in three weeks, are there new worlds to conquer? "I'm going to do a book on guys," he said. "Not men, guys."

What's the difference?

"Guys don't have feelings."