by Chris Broad, 2023
I LOVED this book! It’s funny and informative! Written by a young British man who went to Japan in 2012 at the age of 22 to teach English through the JET program. He ended up spending 10 years there (and maybe is still there), becoming a YouTube sensation, and loving Japan. He takes you with him on his journey and it is a pleasure. When he first arrives, he doesn’t know the language or the culture. He gets assigned to Sakata, a small town and growing smaller, on the northwestern coast of the main island of Japan. His apartment is tiny but he grows to love it. He spends three years in Sakata and during those three years, learns the very difficult language, and learns to love the people and the food. He starts to get fat. He also smokes and drinks a lot! That is what the first three years seemed to be about after the school day; eating, drinking, and smoking. The smoking part changes from being acceptable to unacceptable after about 5 years of being there – he describes how every bar, and there are a lot of bars, were full of cigarette smoke the first few years he lived there. Then, around 2018, it was forbidden to smoke in all but a few Izakaya’s. I think because of the Olympics.
After teaching for 3 years, he had to make a decision on whether to continue teaching or do something else. He had been dabbling with filming and had filmed a few touristy things about Japan that had been pretty successful, like McDonald’s chocolate fries. He decided to become a professional YouTuber. His channel, Abroad in Japan, is very, very successful. He has done documentaries: A week with Japan’s biggest rock star (Hyde); An in-depth look at Fukushima, the nuclear disaster; Why Kyoto’s traditional homes (machiya) are going extinct. He also did one on Ken Watanabe, the actor, and how he transformed a city (Kessenuma) devastated by the tsunami.
When he experienced his first real earthquake, in March of 2022, he was filled with so much fear and anxiety, he thought he would have to leave Japan, but he decided to stay. He ends the book with an epilogue that is poignant. He was always anxious and going to Japan caused him to have horrible panic attacks. He is so glad he didn’t let the fear and anxiety keep him from going to Japan. He’s gone from being fearful and anxious to asking himself, “If I walk way, will I live to regret this?”
He has come to treasure the quiet, beautiful moments of living in Japan – snow falling outside the windows while he eats his yakitori with his best friend, Natsuki; watching the sea after a long days work.
He climbed Mt. Fuji with a British friend, who was wearing shorts, and they almost froze to death, but they did it – once was enough.
He biked across Japan and decided to do all the writing and editing and promised to upload a video a day, not realizing that was impossible. He got lots of negative comments when he didn’t post every day and it really bothered him. He ended up taking a year to edit and post all the videos, but guess what, then the pandemic hit and they were such a hit because people were all stuck at home and with Chris’s videos, they were able to get out and see Japan. It ended up being a blessing, and a good thing that he didn’t give up.
Three things stand out to me: 1. There is a law in Japan since 2008 that is designed to prevent people from getting fat: “To prevent obesity rates from increasing, the new law required companies and local governments to check the waist measurement of people between forty and seventy-five years old each year. If their waistlines exceeded 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, the company would encourage these individuals to take weight-loss classes and put a plan in place to get them into shape, or face financial penalties…the law received widespread support from the public. With the Japanese government’s burgeoning healthcare costs because of the country’s ageing population, an increase in diabetes and heart disease could deliver a crippling blow to the nation’s already struggling finances.
“The 3.3 per cent obesity rates suggests it’s working.”
2. Japanese people drink a lot. Every day after school, Chris would go with a friend to a bar and eat, drink, and smoke. He also writes about an end of the school year party which was one big drunk and everyone tells everyone what they really think about everyone. It’s called a Bonenkai. “It soon became clear that there are only two rules at a Japanese enkai.
“Number one was speak your mind.
“As I’d discovered from Suzuki sensei and other colleagues, who were all having heated conversations around the room, the drunken antics of the Bonenkai provide the perfect backdrop for unleashing the thoughts and opinions kept bottled up throughout the year. Given it was the forgetting-the-year party, it seemed especially important to unburden oneself.
“Rule number two was never, ever pour your own drink. Whether it’s beer, sake or wine, to pick up the bottle and pour for yourself is a big no-no.”
It’s a huge, drunken, tell-all, sing-all (karaoke) party. And then there are after-parties; maybe 3 all together. Then, when they all go back to work the next Monday, it is as if nothing has happened.
3. There is overt racism against foreigners in the housing market. He tried to get an apartment in Sendai and was working with the Happy Home Services. They had found the perfect apartment and he was so excited. But when the manager learned he was a foreigner, he was turned down. This xenophobia came about, he explains, after 265 years of isolationism during the Edo era. There was an actual isolationist policy: Sakoku. The country didn’t reopen until 1868 but the isolationist tendencies linger on; gaijin, ‘outsider’ is how Japanese refer to foreigners. Forty percent of foreigners who responded to a survey report they have been discriminated against in housing. He writes: “After all, why take a high-risk foreign tenant who might flee the country without paying rent, or someone who isn’t used to Japanese customs, when you could wait a little while longer for a safer Japanese tenant?”
I loved this book. I learned about it from the Library’s monthly email on Biographies. Really, really happy to have read it. Now, I kind of know what Claire and Lorenzo are doing. And I know a lot more about Japan! Thank you, Chris Broad! You are an EXCELLENT writer!