The LL2J Journey (blog)

complex flavours

1/29/2020

I have been watching the January Sumo Tournament on NHK online this month and it has been entertaining. Sumo is another in the long list of uniquely Japanese things that we experienced and absorbed during our stay there. It is interesting to recall how things that are initially so foreign became accepted and integrated into our lives so swiftly. Kanji, for example, we learnt to read much of it from repeated exposure to shop signs, road signs and train station markings. It was a necessity to learn in order to function more efficiently. The foreign became familiar. And, eventually, no longer foreign at all but normal, standard. We transitioned from being visitors to residents, integrating the new surroundings and customs wholeheartedly. Of course, we would always be guests of the country and never even close to becoming Japanese (an impossibility) but we definitely were able to identify with our new flock and hang with them smoothly and comfortably through learning and utilising the language and customs appropriately.

Although I knew to say that I was Australian, I actually did not know what that meant. When we first arrived in Tokyo, I would have had a noticeable Aussie accent but over the years it became more neutral, internationalised. Kids are chameleons and adapt to their surroundings. My class at school had students from twenty five different countries, so accents varied greatly and one became adept at assimilating a huge variety of sonic interpretations and pronunciations. This in effect influenced one’s own verbal presentation.

Although my Japanese was limited, one way or another I could express myself clearly in any situation. If I didn’t understand something I would just politely ask. My accent and use of colloquialisms became good enough that I could talk on the phone and the listener would not know I was a gaijin. (Which was fun sometimes.)

Having said that, watching the sumo and seeing all the faces of the viewers in the crowd, I realised last night how decidedly non-Japanese I am. In my childhood and teen years, early twenties, I felt like I was smoothly integrated into the society and I was but there is a huge gap between hanging with a group and being a full member. I freeze framed the crowd and looked at the faces - many approximately my current age - and could suddenly, clearly see and feel how different we are and how far our lives had diverged over the decades. We are products of our environment and lifestyles. I was taken at a young age and dipped into the exotic sauce of Japanese life and culture, I was engulfed in it. Much of the flavour I absorbed. But over the years, without subsequent engagements (more dips), I have become a different flavour - a hybrid mix. Not sure why I am referring to myself as a food but you get the picture, I hope.

I wrote this book to try and investigate the early cooking stages, decipher some of the ingredients and how they blended to create the flavours found in the dish as it exists today. An unusual stew, for certain.

Transporting Back

1/26/2020

Going through the chunky old style photo albums at my parent’s place in Sydney, I have been surprised by the limited number of photographic documentation of our big decade (70’s) in Tokyo. Photography then wasn’t like it is now. Many people didn’t even have cameras. And if you did, prints took a week or sometimes two and each one cost money. So nobody was snap happy. There are shots of the family at home, birthday shots, restaurant shots, etc but hardly any of the outside environment we inhabited. Doubtless, we went to plenty of places but purely for the experience and picture taking was a rare thing. Kind of cool in it’s own way - more power to living in the moment - but a few more visual reminders would have been good for me at this time.

So how come there’s a picture of our lovely Mum standing in a car park you may wonder. And so did I. Until, on closer inspection I realised that the white Toyota Crown is our much loved old car. That alone would not have merited a picture. The car beside it is a Volvo P1200 which was made between 1957 and 1966. Our family had a scarlet red one in Australia in the late sixties and it was much loved. A very stylish car, too, I must say. They were rare in Australia and I remember our Dad would wave to others of the same model, if we ever passed one.

As they became slightly more common, my brothers and I devised a game for car trips were we would see who could be the first to spot another Volvo. If you did, you called out ‘Volv!’ and got points. Extra points were given for the exact same colour and model - in which case you would sing out ‘Red Volv, our fashion!’

Looking at the photo, I vaguely recognise where it is but not quite. It is not a common location but somewhere not completely unfamiliar. It’s funny how places have a feeling and a vibe and get stored in special places in your mind. We all know the phenomenon of going back to visit the old family house after a long absence and remarking how ‘small it is’. In our memory it was bigger. Perhaps we grew physically, but as well, the memory swelled over time perhaps.

I am sure there are many spots in Tokyo that if I am lucky enough to be able to return to visit when this book is published in Japan, I will feel like that about. I’m certain, too, that much has changed and little of what was will still remain. We experience things in reality then store them in our memories where they change shape over time. Ferment. And like tasty oshinko (pickles) when we desire, we can go back for a delicious, snacky revisit.

With the writing of Love Letters To Japan (and this blog), I admit - I have been feasting a little, that’s for certain.

Behind the glossy photos

1/24/2020

My brother, Mook, kindly dropped off a 1977 yearbook from our alma mater, St. Mary’s International School which was located in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. He thought it might be good for this blog - supply some photos or jog some memories. While there weren’t really any photos in particular that I want to use, flicking through it certainly brought back some memories from those high school days - both good and bad.

I talk about it in one of the chapters of Love Letters To Japan, but I struggled at school. I had a problem with authority, in particular if it was unjust or heavy handed. I found it impossible to obey the commands of someone I did not respect. There were plenty of good teachers there but a couple of them were just not good humans and we clashed. That yearbook, for example, was handed out to students (who paid for them) a few weeks before the end of school. The tradition is that you hand your copy around to friends and everyone writes a few words (of sentiment or sarcasm) and signs them under their photo. It brings the book to life, personalises it. My copy was intentionally withheld by our home room teacher, Brother Henry, as a form of targeted and malicious punishment towards me for some mild indiscretion from earlier in term.

Weirdly his odious behaviour still reverberates today. The yearbook is empty, devoid of any personalised messages from friends of the year, because of him. He was known to hang around the locker room unnecessarily after gym and was commonly referred to as Brother Pervert. I could not tolerate his sadistic ways (I was not his only target - he preyed on the weak, the different or anyone who would not submit to his ways). It is not like me at all, I am a peace loving advocate of non-violence, but I have to admit that there was one time, after he had humiliated me in class, that I saw him standing at the top of the stairs and I seriously considered bull rushing him and pushing him down.

I remember the feeling. It all came back as I handled the leather bound book, full of pictures of the chess club, activities, high achievers, happy and innocent elementary school smiling faces in black and white. The surface level presentation of an institution. The stories that aren’t told, the ones like this one, and others - one of Henry’s fellow religious brothers (and my sixth grade teacher) - was later uncovered as a full blown pedophile who for years sexually molested eleven and twelve year old boys in his care while at camp in Kiyosato. His name was Brother Lessard, more commonly referred to by his students as Brother Lizard.

So, yeah, my years in Tokyo, were very special and close to my heart thanks to the culture and kindness of the Japanese people but in the background was the disturbing drone of my school life were I was also bullied by upperclassmen because of my mellow exterior and cheeky, feisty nature that was not going to back down to their attempts at submission. On multiple occasion two or three of them would gang up on my and pound, leave me in a crying ball on the ground. I never snitched or even told my parents. There was no point.

I bring this up because I believe that it is important to shed light on the dark side, in the hope that some courage may be garnered by other victims of oppression and violence in school. I got through it, started lifting weights and learnt some martial arts (not for long - it was too demanding! - but enough to be ready to defend myself). Importantly, too, I learnt to be able to identify assholes in advance and to not engage with them. And, with bullies, to not reveal even a hint of potential vulnerability - to project courage. The last time I was bullied was around the age of fourteen, when a guy who had been jibing me for the whole year flicked a ruler and hit me in the balls. Not only did it hurt like hell but it ignited a wild rage in me and I followed him into a deserted hallway and picked him up into a 90 degree position and slammed him into the wall. He fell to the floor in a stunned and immobile heap, whimpering. After that, nobody bothered me.

Funny, isn’t it. The faux leather bound volume that is made to be reviewed with fondness triggered these memories. Reality, beneath the surface, can be a dark, troubling place. As kids, in general, we are not prepared. And yet, somehow, we get through.

fuel of the future

1/15/2020

The petrol station (gasoriin sutando) on Zaimokucho Street just around the corner from where we lived for all those years did not have it’s bowsers in the standard positions. They were floating in the sky. Well, on the roof. The attended would tug on a special chord and the hose would magically descend as required. It was just another of the many quietly thrilling innovations that we used to encounter during our extended stay in Tokyo.

Other thoroughly modern contraptions (for the time) included automatic train pass and ticket reading turnstiles, ferris wheel car parks (there was one in Roppongi) and, of course, the birth of digital watches and the ground breaking Sony Walkman.

We had come from a simple life in a small house on the edge of the bush and landed right into the middle of the future. In a way it was almost as though we had time travelled. Things that were common then, in Tokyo, would not start appearing back in Australia for twenty years, sometimes longer.

Of course, all the electronic games, Space Invaders and the like, originated in Japan and were immensely proliferate. I do believe that all the early year game play and computer screen involvement my brothers and I had so long ago prepared us for the tech focused existence of the current era. We were early adopters and continued to expand our skills and relationships with hardware and software.

Simple things like riding my motorcycle through the Tokyo metropolitan streets at night stand out, too, as exhilarating, semi-futuristic interactions exclusive to my time there. It was such an efficient city, too, in so many ways that connecting with it, as an organic interface of sorts was exciting and rewarding. Riding the subways - from here to there, changing lines smoothly, every train right on schedule - like a little mouse in giant electric maze was a common pleasure. (Unless it was packed like a can of oysters!)

And then, once you had settled down somewhere, arrived at your destination, the connection with whoever you may encounter was rewarding in a very different way. It was bound to be courteous, gentle, helpful. The people themselves, inhabiting the grand machine, were the essential oil that kept things working smoothly and made the entire experience warmly human and soulfully connected.

It’s funny, only now as I write about it, can I fully appreciate the scope of the awesomeness that was available to me, my reality, in that time and place. At the time, it was normal. Now, I can see that it was really quite extraordinary.

exposure to new experiences

1/12/2020

I talk about this in the book but it’s interesting how growing up in Japan offered so many unique experiences, ones that myself and my family would never have experienced had we remained in Australia - or even ended up in a different country. No doubt, living overseas for an extended period, anywhere, will have an effect on one’s experiences and life outlook. But Japan - especially during the 70’s when we were there - presented rare and surprising opportunities like nowhere else could.

I can’t quite recall the hows and whys but here we are appearing on a Fuji TV daytime show. Viewers were curious about the lives of gaijin and through a series of introductions and convening circumstances we were invited to turn up and turn on the charm. A pair of professional presenters on what looks to be a rather basic set politely interrogated us in turns about our daily lives in Tokyo. It’s always fun to do TV appearances; the hype, a sense of importance and glamour. Of course, we were treated as very special guests with all the trappings of green room food and beverages, our own PA (sadly just for the duration of the taping) and enthusiastic encouragement from everyone around. The other cool thing was that Fuji TV broadcasting was located just up the road from our home in Nishi-Azabu. We probably walked there.

Over the years, the family, as a group and individually, ended up doing all kinds of appearances - in TV ads, for posters, on stage (Mook) and on the government run TV station, NHK. It was always fun and paid well. So what’s not to like. In addition to the regular thrills and adventures of daily life having had this layer of icing made the whole growing up experience even sweeter.

Here we come Harajuku

1/10/2020

Floating on air! Cruising down the hill at the closed off street in Jingumae near Harajuku. For a couple of years period in the mid seventies, every Sunday, my brothers and I would catch the bus to Shibuya and ride our skateboards up past the Olympic stadium to the road that was closed off to traffic for public recreational use.

We each had our own boards and rode them around everywhere. Looking at the photo it reminded me how much I used to love my board. It was a Gordon & Smith ‘Fibreflex’ with Tracker trucks and red polyurethane wheels. One of life’s pleasures is having a treasured item that brings you joy every time you use it - even see it. Different things at different times fill this role, depending on what you are into. It could be a laptop, a mode of transport, a piece of sports equipment. It may be something that you researched carefully beforehand - learning all the specifications of, satisfying yourself with it’s attributes. Acquiring it is made even sweeter if you saved up for it, allowing the anticipation to build. For me, that board was one of those things. I spent ages studying the various options, going through the skater magazines of the time, regularly checking the excellent skate shop up the high end of Takeshita Dori (before it became super trendy.) I saved my yen over many months until I could finally afford it. And it was all worth it.

We used to hang out with the older skater/surfer crew that used to congregate at the top of the hill, taking turns in riding down and showing off new tricks as they slalomed down. Their skill levels were far superior to ours but it was fun to be a part of the gang and they were really friendly and welcoming. We were the only foreigners in the group but it never even felt like we were any different. Our language skills by then were fluent and we integrated easily. My overwhelming memory is of patience and kindness as some of the older guys taught us new skills. (Looking closely at the photo, I just noticed some of the 50’s era rockers - who have since become Instagram heaven for tourists.)

It was during a challenging time for me at school, during the week, where I had become a bit of an outsider and rebel and was having trouble with certain teacher’s abusing their authority. As well, I was being bullied by upperclassmen because of my unwillingness to kowtow. Teen years are a challenge for everybody. Each of us in our own way. I discuss it in more detail in the book but at the time there was no outlet and much of the struggle was internalised. So, I was thankful for the weekend freedom and the opportunity to find a temporary sense of acceptance and belonging as well as to fly a little on my G&S Fibreflex.

Because Love Letters To Japan is written in letter form, each chapter a personal letter to Japan itself, as well as it being a memoir of my Tokyo life in the 70’s, I did not shy away from discussing the more personal and sometime challenging aspects of the coming of age experience. It felt natural for me to confide intimate truths in the narrative rather than presenting a glossed over telling of simply what occurred. My intention was to be as real and honest as possible, revealing and examining layers of existence beyond the surface levels and producing a document with heart and soul that will hopefully enrich the reader, as well as inform and entertain.

On the outside looking in

1/8/2020

I had cultivated my love and appreciation for film in Tokyo, back in the day when going to the movies was a more special and potentially life affecting experience.
Screen viewing time then was probably no more than ten percent of what it is these days. Video was only just being developed, our TV before we left Australia was a tiny black and white screen - so to watch a film was a rare and powerful experience - one of my favourite things.

So when I returned to Australia and needed to get part time work while at Art School, it dawned on me that working as a cinema usher would be an ideal job. When I presented myself at the three main cinema chains on George St., Sydney, I was curtly turned away by the front of house matrons. I didn’t know it then but being an usher or usherette was a coveted position and almost always filled by referral from an insider. Walking in off the street and asking for a spot was next to impossible. Disappointed, I applied for other jobs. Bookshops, preferably second hand, were the second choice. Then art supply shops and game centres, pool halls. Nothing manifested.

Then, in what can only be described as a moment of pure, guided by the light, inspiration that came one afternoon when I was with my brother and girlfriend in a wonderful second hand bookshop on George St., called Gould’s, I spontaneously marched into Hoyts, the largest of the chains and presented myself at the front counter. I can’t remember my exact words to the lady but I mentioned job and usher and before I could finish, she asked ‘Are you here for the interview?’

‘Yes!’, I replied.
‘Wait here a moment, please, I will let the manager, Mr. Cesaro, know that you are here.’

She came out a few minutes later from the back office and asked me to head down past the counters to the glass doors. There I was greeted by an efficient seeming gentleman in a suit who invited me in through the security doors to the back office area.

He then proceeded to interview me. I told him about art school and how I had grown up in Tokyo. Amazingly, he was very curious about Japan and asked me all sorts of questions about it and my time there, how the cinemas run, etc. I used my best storytelling skills and before long, I knew I had a captivated audience. Plus, he was a genuinely warm fellow (from an Italian immigrant family) and we connected well. I was thrilled when he then offered me the job! I started that weekend, beginning with the Friday and Saturday night shifts (the least popular as they were so busy).
Eventually, I added some weeknight shifts and even some weekend days shifts. My duties began with dressing up in the scarlet red blazer, white shirt and bow tie, with black slacks and leather shoes. Then, I would get my assigned flashlight from my locker, my essential weekly time schedule, folded four times and slipped into the top left jacket pocket. It included the start and finish times of each of the seven cinemas, over two floors with detail timings of preview and ad durations before actual showing and gap times between final credit rolls and next session.

On Saturdays and Sunday evenings, all seats were reserved and many of the cinemas were completely sold out. This meant every patron or group had to be met at the doors and lead to their exact seats. The largest cinemas, three, five and seven, held over a thousand people each. So there were as many as thirty ushers and usherettes on the floors on these nights. As the films were about to end, the large double doors would be opened and floods of patrons would flood out. I remember standing there, nodding and smiling, watching all the faces in a kind of movie scene itself. Sometimes, it would continue for ten minutes. It was mesmerising. Waiting in line, often round the corner and down the stairs, would be the group for the next session.

My other duties included, emptying the ticket stub boxes into large plastic bags and taking them to the inner offices, changing the posters on the inside and outside display cases, manning the foyer in a concierge/security guard way and finally, every Thursday evening using the five metre long special gripping pole to arrange the chunky forty centimetre black plastic letters on the marquee outside.

At two and a half years it was the longest I have ever stayed in any job. Best part was, of course, that all movies were free! Not just at Hoyts because they had reciprocal deals with the other cinema chains - so I could go to any movie, anywhere in Sydney (with a plus one) for nothing - as often as I wished. And, as you may imagine, it was often.

ganbaru-zo!

1/6/2020

Hooray! My first rejection letter for 2020! And on day one! (He cheers, as a single tear falls from his face to the floor.)

Certainly not my first rejection letter. Over the decades I have applied for grants and scholarships for my writing, my painting and my films. You gotta be in it to win it was the mantra. I never won it, though. It’s a bit like the lottery. What you are offering needs to not only satisfy the criteria, it needs to be the flavour of the times, needs to tick the boxes for the judges.

It reminds me of when me and two friends took it upon ourselves to make a pilot TV show called Coo-ee Australia for the Japanese market in 1990. It was magazine style, fast cuts with fun titles and zany animations. I hosted with two attractive bilingual Aussie girls, all in Japanese. We spent close to a year shooting and editing it. Luckily, we had a deal with the editing house who let us use their facilities in exchange for a future share of any success. The rough cuts were all done by us on 3/4 inch U-matic machines, chunky professional cousins to Sony Betamax.

Excitingly, I was also able to have access in the evenings to their (at that time super high end) computer graphics workstation Quantel (worth $350,000 in today’s terms). I learnt by sitting in with the graphics guys in my spare time and studying their actions. (Young people: think YouTube instruction video but you are actually there.) Eventually, they felt I was good enough to leave me on my own. It was housed in a fancy, dark, air conditioned suite. I loved going in there and letting time drift. One time the general manager came in and was shocked to see me on his most expensive tech. He was hesitant at first but eventually allowed my continued access. I was able to do the intro and closing titles and a supply of animated inserts. (Interestingly, similar to what I have been doing over the last few months with my music videos on Final Cut Pro.)

Anyway, once the project was complete we held a premiere showing at Kinselas club in Sydney with a Q&A after the screening. Three hundred people attended and we thought we had a sure winner. We took it to Japan and endeavoured to find a TV station willing to commission the series. There were two problems. One: format wise it was slightly ahead of it’s time. Two or three years later there was a flood of similar style, youthful and fun magazine style shows - but at the time it was seen as a risk. The other problem (apparent in retrospect) was that we did not have a business manager to do our negotiations and handle the meetings for us. I was the only Japanese speaker in our group - so after watching half and hour of me cavorting around, acting wacky in various Australian locations, the TV execs were then required to take me seriously in the deal making ends of the meetings. Not surprised that it didn’t happen.

Anyway, back to the present. Things are different now. (Some things.) Thirty years of experience in the creative industry has brought some wisdom. And this project, this book, is something that I believe in 100%. I believe that it will find it’s place eventually and be published in Japan. For now, I have been sending out submissions to various agents and publishing houses (in Australia and Japan) myself, but I feel that the best route for me to take is to find an agent/manager/representative in Tokyo who has successful experience in the field already and is able to partner up. I will follow the path ahead of me, prepared for let downs and rejections along the way, but am determined to carry on till a resolution that is aligned with my aspirations and have the book published and distributed throughout Japan.

So, yeah, one rejection down, more to come. Tuttle would have been ideal and I had a bit of an emotional connection with them. I used to buy their books when living in Tokyo, as long ago as the early seventies. So, would’ve been poetic if they has swerved the other way. But as they say in Japanese: ‘Ganbaru-zo!’ (Gonna keep trying!)

The journey continues. Turns out the actual writing of the book was the easy part!

brothers and friends

1/3/2020

It didn’t take us long to make friends with the kids in the neighbourhood. Kids are kids wherever you are; no preconceptions, no barriers, always up for some fun. In this picture, my bros, Mook and Rich (centre) are hanging out with some of our neighbours. At the back are the Arai girls, daughters of our landlords (top left) who we were friendly with but were already too old to run around and play. In the top right is Mrs. Tomotake, the Mum of Zenta and Mari, closer to our ages. Mr. Tomotake was a bit of a TV celebrity - with his own cooking show and quite a charismatic character. He also did some singing and general stage cavorting from memory. Mr. Tomotake was more grass roots, earthy, wholesome. She had a strong sense of self and place in the world and a kind heart. She would not be out of place in Mullumbimby the ‘arty, hippy, alternative’ town that I live in now in Australia (pop. 3,300). So, she was quite a rare character at the time.

I like this photo because of Richie’s look: the clarity and the purity is striking. He was the most quietly thoughtful of the three of us. Mook was the showman, wildcat. I was the main scheme conceiver and adventure leader. The three of us used to do everything together, go everywhere together and were a real trio. Rich is three and a half years younger than me, Mook in the middle two years below me. Being the youngest, Rich, would go along with his older brother’s plans but he always had his own sense of being and would make up his own mind about things. Fairness was an important quality instilled in us by our parents and we always shared small bounties equally and made decisions by consensus. A quick best of three game of jun-ken-poi! (rock-scissors-paper; something we had never heard of in Australia) resolved any minor disputes.

Because we were all always ravenous, I remember a particular procedure we thought up and used to do with potato chips. First, we would pour the entire pack out onto the table. Then, once we said go you would pick up a single chip. With it, using dexterity, you would punch out a tiny hole in the middle and hold it up for the other two to approve. You could then devour it immediately or put it in your own growing side pile for later consumption. It was a fun game and worked well. Usually we would mostly save them, peppered with the occasional quick reward single munch.

For the first three yeas of our Tokyo life, we all shared the same room, Mook and Rich in a bunk. We had a tiny tap and sink in the corner of our room but didn’t use it much. We also used to climb out of our second floor window and drop down to the top ledge of a two metre fence, then climb down to the back alley from there. Some of our neighbourhood kid friends lived in that little back alley. An old man on a bike used to come by every afternoon around five and blow a funny, wailing horn. From a special box mounted on the back of his bike, he sold fresh blocks of tofu.

O.G in the Ginza

1/2/2020

Sunday afternoon/evening was family day in Tokyo. Especially in the early years, before we each formed our own social networks, the five of us were like a floating island in a sea of exotic and unfamiliar marine activity. Dad was starting a company from the bottom up, so to get the momentum going, he had to devote a lot of time and energy to the business. As well as taking care of her three young boys, Mum, also helped out at the office when she could. We used to all go in to the Roppongi office together, especially in the evenings sometimes after the staff had left. (There were five or six in the beginning which eventually grew to twenty plus full time.)

An empty office has a certain kind of feeling about it. Like some of the buzz from the daytime activity is still lingering, slow to settle to silence before the next morning’s pace revs up again. My brothers and I would find a chair in the conference room, sit at the large table, draw pictures or do some reading. There was also a room dedicated to the telex machine - which was like a hefty electric typewriter that had a dedicated phone line. The messages would, before being sent overseas, be recorded onto 3cm thick paper tape with tiny holes punched encoded onto it to keep the ‘online’ time to a minimum as it was expensive in those days.

Received messages would be printed out at about 60 wpm on the enclosed roll of perforated paper. It was a mechanical forerunner to the net. When it would start up, my brothers and I would hear it erupt and run in to witness the magical communication as it beamed across the oceans. Sometimes we would sit in the room and wait, hoping to be startled by the noisey and frenetic, clicking beast, playing with the spent paper tape snakes.

The Sunday tradition was for us all to go together to a movie on the big screen in one of Tokyo’s many cinemas. We would travel where the good flicks were - usually either Shibuya, Ginza, Hibiya - rarely Shinjuku in our second hand, late 60’s, white Toyota Crown. If we were going to Shibuya, sometimes we would first stop by Yoyogi park and ride around on the bicycle track on the free hire bikes. If we were near the Ginza, we would make the most of the Sunday main road closure and stroll up and down the broad, fancy shop lined Ginza street. Evidenced in the photo, from the early seventies, our Dad is looking simultaneously hip and debonair in his Sunday attire in the middle of Ginza Dori.

The movie session options were listed in an English language weekly called Tokyo Weekender (started in 1970), available from the local Azabu National supermarket every Friday. As well as the movie listings there was one movie review per week by the editor, a colourful character called Corky Alexander. There was no IMDB, of course, but the family was pretty good at choosing good flicks. There were no ratings in Japan, so as kids we were privileged to see films that were M and R rated back in Australia. I like to think of it as an important part of our education. Mum and Dad would judiciously get us to cover our eyes during scenes of excessive violence or overt sexual activity. Sometimes my fingers just would not close properly.

After the film, we would go out to a restaurant. My favourite was Italian. I talk about it at length in the book, but the owner/maître d of our regular Italian spot was later jailed for his covert criminal connections and activity. He gave us kids free banana splits, so not that we knew anything but even if we did, we would not have snitched.

At the time, the whole Japan experience was what was happening. It wasn’t till I was a bit older that I realised how lucky we were to even be there and what a trail blazer our father was to conceive of and manifest a successful, independent, self started business in Tokyo way back then. He has told me about some of the many early challenges - everything was new - but also mentioned that they were some of the most satisfying years of his life. He went from sleeping on a futon on the floor of a tiny office space (for the three months before the family arrived) to building an international recognised, thriving and efficient company that connected Australia (and later, the rest of the world) to Japanese industry, trade and business. Bravo, Dad.

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THE LL2J journey