Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. East Asia Studies. Travel Writing. Japanese girl gangs addicted to tea... Sullen middle school boys and the parents who ignore them... Teachers obsessed with The Carpenters... Cartoon robots teaching democracy... Welcome to the world of teaching English in Japan. EMBRACE YOUR INSIGNIFICANCE is the blow-by-blow chronicles of Bob Gaulke, an anxious thirty-something American trying to fake his way through a culture that fascinates and exhausts him. Gaulke recounts his three years of strange encounters and cultural misconnections in a style of reportage that is entertaining, oblique, and surprisingly illuminating.