明けましておめでとうございます。
さて、新年最初のアップは、Ronさんの初来日の話。ヨーロッパへの放浪の旅はありましたが、アジアは初めて。さて・・・・・
初来日でいきなり栃木県宇都宮市で生活を開始する外国人は、いまでも珍しいと思います。
I arrived in Japan at Haneda Airport late in the night on Air Siam before it went out of business. The teachers from the school I was to work at were wait for me and two other people that were hired on a 1-year contract.
As soon as we got our belongings, we set out by car to Utsunomiya, in Tochigi Prefecture, which is about 60 miles north of Tokyo.
Utsunomiya was one of those cities, which was completely destroyed during World War II and totally rebuilt after the war. It had major industries and a strong agricultural base. Also, in those days, it was a bit far from Tokyo, so I could not really be an outskirt suburb of Tokyo. Several years after I left, the bullet trains started to go through Utsunomiya and more and more people who worked in the northern part of Tokyo would commute from there. Simply put, Utsunomiya was a conservative factory town.
Coming from California the city was freezing for me. I had an old bicycle, which I used to ride to the school every day, and I think I had two red lines from my nostrils to my upper lip for six months until spring came. Simply, I had an endless cold and runny nose.
Part of the one year there I share a house with another teacher. The house was extremely cold, and we had an old gas stove in the middle of our room. It seemed the heat went straight up and out of the ceiling.
In those days, I learned all kinds of different lifestyles, like taking a Japanese bath, washing, spinning and hanging out the laundry. Yes, those are all very separate functions, which are done individually, and calling the “Benjo”, (Japanese toilet) truck when the toilet got full and smelled up the entire house was another task. We didn’t even have a flush toilet. The benjo truck is a truck with a suction vacuum system on the back of it which sucks out the waste in the septic tanks in houses. You can smell the banjo truck coming down the road for about a block and a half. It’s very distinct if you are right behind it on the road on a bicycle. On top of that, the toilet was not the western type, so we had to practice doing deep knee bends when we went number two. That gave terrible hemorrhoids to my roommate. For me, I was able to get through the whole exercise all right. I, of course, slept on the floor with a Japanese futon.
As I had a good idea how to approach the Japanese language from my studies in California, I literally brought all my books with me. I found one of the Japanese English teachers to drill me the way I wanted on the Japanese language exercises. Here again, I think I set up a pretty good training program for myself.
という訳でRon-san、和式のトイレには困ったようです。我々も最近は和式のトイレは敬遠しますね。ウオッシュレット付の様式が良いようで！
Ronさんのセミナーいかがですか。苦労の多かったRon-sanの青春時代やキャリア形成の話、特に何故日本に来る決断をしたのか、などを聴いてみたいですね。それとRonさんが楽しみにしている出席者と皆さんとのノミニケーション。正月明けくらいからぼちぼち。
皆さんがおやりになっている勉強会などに出張し講演させていただきます。
ただし、Ronさんが住んでいる東京都大田区から日帰りできるところとさせてください。
もっとも台湾でも日帰りは可能ですが。
＜新しい仕事が始まり、ストレスたっぷり状態！気分転換に漫画『武蔵野』を読んだ。安倍公房の小説『砂の女』『燃え尽きた地図』の読後感のような不思議な気分。大人の漫画だ（『武蔵野』リイド社、斎藤潤一郎著）＞
さて、新年最初のアップは、Ronさんの初来日の話。ヨーロッパへの放浪の旅はありましたが、アジアは初めて。さて・・・・・
初来日でいきなり栃木県宇都宮市で生活を開始する外国人は、いまでも珍しいと思います。
I arrived in Japan at Haneda Airport late in the night on Air Siam before it went out of business. The teachers from the school I was to work at were wait for me and two other people that were hired on a 1-year contract.
As soon as we got our belongings, we set out by car to Utsunomiya, in Tochigi Prefecture, which is about 60 miles north of Tokyo.
Utsunomiya was one of those cities, which was completely destroyed during World War II and totally rebuilt after the war. It had major industries and a strong agricultural base. Also, in those days, it was a bit far from Tokyo, so I could not really be an outskirt suburb of Tokyo. Several years after I left, the bullet trains started to go through Utsunomiya and more and more people who worked in the northern part of Tokyo would commute from there. Simply put, Utsunomiya was a conservative factory town.
Coming from California the city was freezing for me. I had an old bicycle, which I used to ride to the school every day, and I think I had two red lines from my nostrils to my upper lip for six months until spring came. Simply, I had an endless cold and runny nose.
Part of the one year there I share a house with another teacher. The house was extremely cold, and we had an old gas stove in the middle of our room. It seemed the heat went straight up and out of the ceiling.
In those days, I learned all kinds of different lifestyles, like taking a Japanese bath, washing, spinning and hanging out the laundry. Yes, those are all very separate functions, which are done individually, and calling the “Benjo”, (Japanese toilet) truck when the toilet got full and smelled up the entire house was another task. We didn’t even have a flush toilet. The benjo truck is a truck with a suction vacuum system on the back of it which sucks out the waste in the septic tanks in houses. You can smell the banjo truck coming down the road for about a block and a half. It’s very distinct if you are right behind it on the road on a bicycle. On top of that, the toilet was not the western type, so we had to practice doing deep knee bends when we went number two. That gave terrible hemorrhoids to my roommate. For me, I was able to get through the whole exercise all right. I, of course, slept on the floor with a Japanese futon.
As I had a good idea how to approach the Japanese language from my studies in California, I literally brought all my books with me. I found one of the Japanese English teachers to drill me the way I wanted on the Japanese language exercises. Here again, I think I set up a pretty good training program for myself.
という訳でRon-san、和式のトイレには困ったようです。我々も最近は和式のトイレは敬遠しますね。ウオッシュレット付の様式が良いようで！
Ronさんのセミナーいかがですか。苦労の多かったRon-sanの青春時代やキャリア形成の話、特に何故日本に来る決断をしたのか、などを聴いてみたいですね。それとRonさんが楽しみにしている出席者と皆さんとのノミニケーション。正月明けくらいからぼちぼち。
皆さんがおやりになっている勉強会などに出張し講演させていただきます。
ただし、Ronさんが住んでいる東京都大田区から日帰りできるところとさせてください。
もっとも台湾でも日帰りは可能ですが。
＜新しい仕事が始まり、ストレスたっぷり状態！気分転換に漫画『武蔵野』を読んだ。安倍公房の小説『砂の女』『燃え尽きた地図』の読後感のような不思議な気分。大人の漫画だ（『武蔵野』リイド社、斎藤潤一郎著）＞
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