frequently asked questions
- Just who were the Celts, and what is known about them?
- Why did you come to Japan?
- Can you use chopsticks?
- Do you like natto?
- Which part of England do you come from?
- Is that near London?
- Do English people wash their hands before or after they go to the toilet?
- Which football team do you support?
- What blood type are you?
- How long have you been in Japan?
- Where did you meet your wife?
- How did you learn Japanese?
- What did you study at university?
- Which countries have you visited?
- Will you return to live in England one day?
- Has anyone ever told you you look like Michael Owen?
- Why did the chicken cross the road?
Just who were the Celts, and what is known about them?
Very little has been written about the Celts. It is believed that Frank Delaney was going to make a BBC TV series
on the subject, but unfortunately the plans never got beyond the drawing board. What appears to have happened is this
(and extant data is sketchy at best): a group from Europe had wandered eastwards in search of brides, but found
their weekend schedules disturbingly blank. Out of their inner turmoil was born a team called the Tokyo Irish. Soon
their members had swollen to such a worrying degree, they realised something had to be done. And quickly. The youngest
brightest and most nimbly-footed decided to break away and seek happier times on their own. These brave few took to
calling themselves the Kanto Celts. At first, things looked dodgy. Getting eleven able-bodied men out to Tachikawa on a
Sunday morning, wearing something suitable, and not throwing up by the pitch side, was a herculean effort. But one man,
a born leader of men, led the way. And where he went, the Celts were sure to follow. And his name was Podge.
Why did you come to Japan?
At university I was walking along a cloister in Queen's College one day, when I spotted a poster that caught my eye.
"Work in Japan!" it said. Ever susceptible to suggestion, I decided to give it a go. Teaching for a year, with an option
to extend that to two (if all went well), with all the hassle of visas, accomodation and the lingo sorted out for you,
it sounded worth a try. To be honest, I'd done the Careers Office test on their state-of-the-art computer, and it'd told me
I should become an antique dealer. It was a difficult choice to make, but the world of Arthur Negus's loss has been
Japan's gain. That's one way of looking at it, anyway.
Can you use chopsticks?
Yes, I can. A friend on the JET Programme called Matthew Saxton showed me how easy it is to use chopsticks, as we
sat in a dingy dive in Shinjuku. Wally's top tip: the bottom stick rests in the groove between your thumb and forefinger.
It doesn't move. The top stick is held like a pencil between your forefinger and middle finger. The only finger you
use is your forefinger. The tips of the two sticks should meet. End of today's lesson.
Do you like natto?
Yes, I do. I eat it every other day, on average. It is the perfect complement to a bowl of hot rice, and goes well with
umeboshi (pickled plums) and kimuchi (Korean spicy cabbage). It wasn't love at first sight, though, not by any stretch of the
imagination. The first time I smelled it was when I was staying with my good friends the Adachis. Their son Michihiko
whisked some natto up with soy sauce and chopped spring onion. It smelt vile. Then, over a period of time, I got used
to it, and one day, when hunger was getting the better of me, I thought, "Heck, why not?" Michihiko obviously thought
it was pretty damn tasty, so trusting his judgement, I took the plunge. And have never looked back. A Canadian friend
called Ken tells me it goes well with grapefruit, too, but with Ken you never know . . .
Which part of England do you come from?
The southwest. I was born in Cornwall, and spent my childhood there, in Devon and the Bristol area. Places to look for on the map
(if you're that way inclined): Harrowbarrow (always gets a laugh from Japanese people for some reason) which is near Callington;
Thornbury; Tavistock; and the big city itself, Plymouth.
Is that near London?
Well, if the Golden Hind train is still running, and they're not mending the track at Dawlish, you can make it up to
London in 3 hours. By car, if you keep within the speed limits and take a break at a Happy Eater along the way, you're
looking at a trip of 4 hours plus. By motorway it's 180 miles. For kilometres, multiply that by 1.609. Which makes it 290 km.
Do English people wash their hands before or after they go
to the toilet?
In case you think I'm being flippant, this really and truly was a question someone asked me. And he wasn't being ironic.
Which football team do I support?
Ever since Kevin wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve Keegan was in charge at St James's, I've been a Newcastle fan. They play in
old-fashioned colours, they pass the ball well, and they don't believe in nil-nil draws. And they gave Sir Alex Ferguson
and his boys a 5-0 drubbing that I'll never forget. Their Belgian centre-half lobbed Schmeichel from way outside the penalty
area. Not everyone's idea of the goal of the decade, but it did it for me. Alas, Becks et co had the last laugh, storming
back to win the Championship after trailing by a ridiculous margin. Then King Kev lost the plot, made his infamous outburst
on the TV, and chucked it all in. From Kev to Kenny . . . the team went from the wildly unpredictable (Colombian Faustino
Asprilla heading a hat-trick to beat Barcelona; David Ginola belting in a scorcher against some Turkish outfit; getting beaten
4-3 at Anfield to a Stan Collymore winner) to the ineffably boring (Ian Rush, John Barnes, and other old-timers who were well past
their best). Then, came Ruud "netto" Gullit with his dreadlocks and promises of sexy football. After a tiff with the captain and
Toon Army icon ("it were hand-bags at ten paces"), Ruud exited stage left, to be followed by Sir Bobby Robson. Under his
canny management the team are back to playing the sort of attacking football the fans love, and are learning to defend (it does
come in handy, though, having Shay Given in goal).
What blood type are you?
I have no idea what blood type I am. This shocks and amazes most Japanese, who believe your blood type determines your character.
Most Japanese are blood type A, and apparently this makes them majime (serious) and kichomen (neat and tidy).
How long have you been in Japan?
I arrived in Japan at the beginning of August in 1987. Apart from a period of 6 months from August 88 till Feb 89, I've been here
ever since. Almost 16 years . . .
Where did you meet your wife?
A friend called Minoru Furuta asked me if I would like some proofreading work. It involved reading some English and saying
whether it sounded natural or not. The words 'money' and 'old rope' spring to mind, don't they? I said I'd love to try my hand
at proofreading. Kyoko was the editor, and before we knew it, we were collaborating on more than just 'natural English' . . .
How did you learn Japanese?
Hard work. The first year I spent team-teaching with Japanese high-school teachers who had been told they had to accomodate a
gaijin (non-Japanese) in their classes. Some were not best thrilled at this, and so I found myself sitting by the window,
watching a class of 50 teenagers being lectured to. I spoke no Japanese at all, but I did notice all the sentences seemed to
end the same way: this word "kedo" kept popping up. Auto-didact that I am, I looked it up in my romanized dictionary, and was
gobsmacked to discover it meant "but". How can you finish every other sentence with "but"? That was when it dawned on me that
Japanese might be a bit different from French and German. From there, I learned the kanji (characters) for kyuko
(express train) as the local train took twice as long again. It did help that they wrote kyuko in red, and kakueki-teisha
(local train) in blue. A micro-cassette recorder was a great help, and became one of my nantsu dougu (seven tools being the things
you carry everywhere with you). Then a few months of one-to-one tuition in London with a qualified teacher (thank you Nagata-sensei)
who told me I'd never speak Japanese properly if I couldn't also read it. She got me writing kanji, and before I knew it,
I was hooked. Back in Japan, the Adachi family were extraordinarily kind, and invited me to stay with them. I attended the Nichibei
Kaiwa Gakuin school in Yotsuya for 6 months. Then I went to study at the national university in Yamaguchi, where I was left
to my own devices, and took some classes in economics and anthropology. Luckily, I made friends with some potters, Kiyoshi
and Yoshimasa Yamato, who showed me how to use the wheel, how to play tennis, and how to recognize a dirty joke in Japanese. The
two years I spent doing my Masters at Tokyo University were tough, but with a lot of help from friends I muddled my way
through. Writing my Masters thesis in Japanese did have one enormous benefit: it effectively meant none of my non-Japanese
friends has any idea what I am supposed to be an expert in. Quite handy, that. But, of course, the best way to learn any
language is to practise, practise, and then practise some more. For that, you need someone with the patience of Job, someone
who will gamely listen on as you mangle their language in ways they never thought possible. For that, and for so much more
besides, I thank Kyoko.
What did you study at university?
French and German, with the emphasis on 19th and 20th century literature. My first piece of work on Baudelaire was compared to
walking over (insert something white symbolizing purity) wearing muddy wellington boots. It was downhill from there, really.
Which countries have you visited?
I'm not a globe-trotter. In fact, unless pushed, I stay as close to home as I can. Three weeks in Mexico was a notable
exception (great Mayan ruins at Palenque and Chichen Itza).
Will you return to live in England one day?
If someone offered me a job I thought I could do (and enjoy) back in Blighty, I'd be more than happy to give it a go. But as
the budget for education in the UK seems to be shrinking all the time, and I've never worked outside of the classroom, I
can't see a move in the near future.
Has anyone ever told you you look like Michael Owen?
Well, now you come to mention it . . .