INTO THE COUNTRY
OF STANDING MEN
by Rey Ventura
(author of Underground in Japan)
ADMU Press
Copyright 2007
www.unipress@admu.edu.ph
www.ateneopress.org

"In Japan the 'unauthorized' migrant laborers are known as tachinbo, literally standing men, because they have to stand in line while a company foreman sizes them up and chooses the most able ones for the job for the day. According to Ventura, 'it is important to be seen standing. If you were sitting, that would mean you are just loafing around.'

"Fifteen years after, the standing men have somehow grown roots in their second 'home' with one or two having married Japanese, or with offspring that have been 'made in Japan.' They are not as intimated by their status as they were when they first came, some have become very fluent in the language and comfortable in the lifestyle, but as the book poignantly shows, the tachinbo ironically embodies homelessness as never before: he will never be considered a citizen by the Japanese state, nor can he now go back to his own home that somehow seems to have forgotten him after all these years.

"Country of Standing Men also features women, in all their strengths and frailties. Straightforward language, vivid imagery, and a unique sense of humor all contribute to making this book a gripping chronicle of an evolving social reality."

- Publisher's Release

OOV Bookshelf 2007

SEPTEMBER 2007 FEATURE COMMON DESTINY Filipino American Generations by Juanita Tamayo Lott Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street ni Benjamin Pimentel LAKBAY SINING readings on cultural development in the Philippines by Various Authors The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes by Eileen R. Tabios Into the Country of Standing Men by Rey Ventura A Woman Pope, Neanderthals & Other Stories by Denis Murphy Salvaged Poems By Emman Lacaba U.G. An Underground Tale The Journey of Edgar Jopson and the First Quarter Storm Generation by Benjamin Pimentel MAY 2007 FEATURE The Bride Anthology by Patria Rivera 25 Chickens and a Pig for the Bride by Evangeline Canonizado Buell Not at the Table, Please! By Quirico S. Samonte, Jr. SCRATCH THE NEWS Filipino Americans In Our Midst by Cristina D.C. Pastor On the Presence of Filipinos in the United States by E. San Juan, Jr.