I had never traveled as much as I wanted when I was younger and always had a touch of wanderlust. After my divorce I found myself at loose ends and ran into someone who had just returned from teaching English in Japan. The stories and the money all sounded good and it appeared I had all the qualifications (warm, vertical, spoke English, and had a university degree), so I decided to go to Japan for some adventure.

After traveling around Japan for a few months I eventually got a job teaching English for Interact English who focused on teaching English to businesses. I taught at companies like Mitsubishi Chemical, and Kuraray, who made plastic valves for dialysis machines, and another company that made ball bearings and computer chips. Interact was a national company and I worked in a small tourist type town called Kurashiki. The canal you see in the picture above is a heritage site from the days when goods were delivered by canal. During the summer they had a festival celebrating the town's origins, with a stage where there were various international performances. I was asked to represent Canada and sing some Canadian songs. Lots of fun.

While in Kurashiki I worked weekends entertaining at San Daiya Steak House. The steak was shredded and served on red hot cast iron platters set on wooden trays. The patrons cooked the food to their individual taste. The specialty of the restaurant was garlic, and just before this red hot plate was brought to the table a handful of freshly chopped garlic was thrown on the plate. The entire place reeked of garlic and when I got home at night I was forced to take a shower before bed so I could wash off the garlic smell. After I quit playing there, my guitar still reeked of garlic for the next 6 months. Sometimes I can still smell it even now.

I worked at Kurashiki for about a year and then moved to Fukuoka, a seaside city on the southern island of Shikoku - one of my favorite places in Japan. I had stayed there for a few months when I first came to Japan and played at Jacky's Bar. So when I returned, Jacky asked me to come back and play at the bar again.

Jacky's was what we called a "Gaijin Bar", a lot of 'expats' and English teachers hung out there. There were also many Japanese clients as well.

Jacky was quite a character. He was Japanese, in his early 40's, and had never been out of Japan. He spoke fluent English, drove a Porsche, played guitar, bass and drums. His wife ran the bar, and his girlfriend played keyboards in the band with him. (Hey! It's Japan. What can I say!) Sometimes I played solo and sometimes with the band. I was there for almost every weekend for over a year.

Another band member, the bass player, worked in a recording studio that did a lot of commercials and jingles. He asked me to do a number of commercials for the studio. By this time I could speak a bit of Japanese and the reason they wanted me to do commercials was that the Japanese could always tell when a foreigner was speaking their language - and, just as commercials here feature voices with various accents, it's this difference that catches our attention and makes us listen. Japanese is a mono-tonal language, which means it's spoken in a flat tone. English, on the other hand, is poly-tonal - which means the tone of our voice goes up and down when we speak. Therefore English speakers usually add tonality to Japanese where there should be none - so it sounds very funny to the Japanese ear to hear us speaking Japanese.

I continued to study Japanese and, as a musician, was soon able to adopt the monotone of the Japanese language. My crowning glory came one day in the recording studio. I was asked to read a particular line in Japanese for the producer - which I did. Then there was this long pause where I heard nothing from the sound engineers booth. I began to worry. I was pretty sure I'd read it properly. Had I said something wrong? Was my Japanese that bad? Did they decide I wasn't the right person to do it? What was going on?

Eventually the producer came on the intercom and asked me to do it again - but this time do it like a Gaijin - a foreigner. I didn't understand. Well, he said, the problem is that your Japanese pronunciation is too good and sounds perfect and what they really wanted was to have the "Gaijin sound". I laughed and added some tonal changes to the next take to give them the "Gaijin sound" they wanted. Japan is a funny place.

Towards the end of my stay in Japan I began having health problems and I returned to Canada in September of 1994. I was having trouble playing my guitar for extended periods and five months after I returned I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Today, I still play and entertain the odd bit here and there for fun but am not able to do it professionally any more.

So, it was time to move on and find another career - which finds me sitting in a computer class building this web site for a class project. Hopefully, the next chapter will read:

Braden Corby - Web Productions