Sentence:  Japanese is traditionally written downwards ("tategaki") and you begin reading from the top right of a page. This means that books are opened from what we would consider to be the back. Nowadays, however, books, newspapers and magazines are often written <WSD>western</WSD> style, in horizontal lines ("yokogaki") from left to right and, in these cases, the book is opened from our (<WSD>western</WSD>) understanding of the front. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Occidental.