Yuko, Friendship Between Nations
$28.95, Hardcover
Yūkō, which means “friendship between nations,” tells the story of Dick Jorgensen’s tenure on The Asia Foundation’s Japan desk.
Before getting there, Jorgensen takes readers along on his first around-the-world journey as he travels back to the United States from Japan in 1956. (O Tomodachi, Jorgensen’s first book, tells the story of his two years of teaching at the University of Hiroshima from 1954-56.)
Through Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and an ocean voyage from Genoa to New York, Jorgensen gives us a firsthand view of life and times in the mid-20th-century world, cluing us into the history of various places along the way, and reminding us that the world is ever-changing and subject to the vagaries of man and politics.
When an unexpected offer arrives to join the staff of The Asia Foundation in San Francisco, he heads off on another grand adventure.