An Ex-Expat

Like the title says…..

My expat country was Japan, from 1977 (before Narita started operating and the yen was 361 to the dollar) to spring of 1998.  Went with silly dreams of studying a year abroad and then going back to grad school for a degree in Asian Studies.  Didn’t return go to grad school, which was probably one of the smarter things I’ve done in my life

Instead, I met a woman (isn’t that always the case?) set up house and embarked on my sojourn.

Life was good in Japan, but with a growing son and thoughts about where would be the best environment for him to mature to an adult in, packed up and returned home.

Last, what will appear here will probably change and change and change again, for as I learned from my Japanese calligraphy class many years ago, there is no perfection, just a series of gradual refinements in the art.

Those Whose Paths I've Crosssed and Who Will Flit  in and Out of This Blog.

My son:.  He will appear often in this blog.He’s of mixed parentage, now in his late teens.  A good kid overall, except when his teenager side acts up.  He was soooo much easier to deal with as a toddler!

Large multinational automobile manufacturer number 1:  My first real job in Japan. Spent 13 years there in the technical center.  What was it like?  It was an experience in which I was getting an education  you could not/will not find in a MBA program, and one that MBA candidates in the U.S. would probably sell their mother’s souls for, and was being paid and paid well for it.

Large multinational automobile manufacturer number 2: In 1998, they offered me a job, a ticket and expenses back home.  Had six very good years with them despite the financial difficulties they faced.  Left them in 2004 to go back to large multinational automobile manufacturer number 1, which turned out to be a huge mistake, and now I find myself among those looking for employment.

The Sake Dojo Alumni: A bunch of people who have kept in touch with one another over the years. We all attended the same foreign studies program in Kansai, and have been at least once to an izakaya off the Keihan Railway’s Makino Eki called, “’The Sake Dojo’  Good Yaki soba, cheap beer, and OMG dirty.

The Auto Gal: A  woman, who has done well as an executive in the automotive business, which has pretty much been and still is a guy's club.  She was one of the first people I met on my first day at large multinational automobile manufacturer number 2, trying to pull a fast one on me by ‘ordering’ me to read 3 large piles of industry mass mailings on my desk and file a report by the end of the week.  My kind of humor that is. 

Pound Salt:.  One of my 2 younger brothers

She Made it After All: A co-worker at large multinational automobile manufacturer number 2, who wouldn’t speak to me for a whole day after I deadpanned the first Lord of the Rings movie (Still think the movie is lame). She was downsized through no fault of her own and then turned her life around, got her law degree and passed the bar.  A good life example.

Miss Nagoya:  She actually was selected as that. Met her while teaching. She was taken by her parents as an infant to live in New York and did not return to Japan until her teens.  She also probably knows more about my early life in Japan than I remember or want remembered. ;-)

The Proprietress:  She sat behind me in my elementary school band, and played the French horn, or so I thought. When we hooked up again many years later, she told me she had faked it!

She moved away and had a life  bit bit like Jenny of Forest Gump.  But now she's settled in Tennesse, runs a B & B in the mountains near Knoxsville and is happy.