Thirty Years in Japan

I arrived in Tokyo at the end of August 1978. I was seven. This month, the time I have lived in Japan adds up to thirty years.

Not thirty years in a row. Three stays: 1978 to 1984, 1994 to 1997, and 2005 to today. The first one was my parents' decision. Every one since has been mine. Not always in the obvious way. But mine.

Kagurazaka, 1978

My father had been posted to the Lycée Franco-Japonais de Tokyo. We lived in Kagurazaka, in an old wooden house. The neighbour across the lane was a shamisen teacher. Her students were geisha. That was my normal.

It was the Showa era. There were not many foreigners. In the countryside, kids had two reactions to me. The first: あ！アメリカ人. A foreigner was an American, by definition. The second: can I touch your hair? Mine was almost blond. Most of them had never seen that up close.

Six years later we left for Morocco. I was thirteen.

The decision, Rabat, 1984

I told my parents I would live in Japan when I grew up. Not that I wanted to. That I would. So I needed to keep my Japanese. Could they find me a teacher? In Rabat?

They were surprised. They tried anyway. A few weeks later they were at a dinner at the Japanese ambassador's residence. I was not there. The ambassador had been chief of protocol at the Imperial Household. He had organized President Mitterrand's visit to the Imperial Palace. Kids from the French school had lined up with flags that day. My brother and I were among them. He stopped the dinner, found the Super 8 reel, and played it. There I was, for a second, holding a flag.

He found them a teacher. Every Friday evening for five years, I learned adult Japanese. Kanji, grammar, the language of a young man instead of a small boy. My family still laughs about one thing. When my teacher phoned the house at dinner time, I would take the call and bow. Over the phone. Without noticing.

When I reached Langues'O in Paris, I already spoke and wrote the language. The first two years felt a bit like cheating. I made up for it by helping my classmates. And by taking the lead role in a couple of plays, in Japanese. A lot of fun.

Tokyo again, 1994

A Monbusho scholarship. A research seat at the University of Tokyo, with a professor studying digital currency. In 1994. He was on Japanese TV so often that I would catch him being interviewed on the evening news. Then a small French software company, 4D, in its brand new Japan subsidiary. Part time, then full time. Then a French programme that let graduates do their national service in a company abroad, which kept me there another eighteen months.

That first job taught me something I still use every week. I was the one writing the marketing emails to our partner community. An older Japanese colleague sat me down and taught me keigo. Properly. Thirty years later, when I ghostwrite a mail from an executive to a Japanese CEO, the draft goes out as written. My bosses tell me that not many of my Japanese colleagues can say that.

Then it ended. A power struggle between the Japan CEO and the APAC CEO. My boss, a friend and a mentor, was pushed out. I was collateral. End of 1997, I was on a plane to France.

Toulouse, and the long way back

After Japan, I spent a month in Morocco. One day I dropped by my father's office in Rabat. A young Moroccan woman was there for a meeting, on her day off. I drove her home. That was all. That summer she came to Toulouse to visit her brother. My father, who misses nothing, gave me the brother's phone number. I invited her to dinner. The rest is history.

Morocco was not a detour in my story, it turned out. It was the other half. She left a good career at the French Embassy in Rabat and moved to Toulouse, for me. She built a new life there, from scratch. Our two boys were born in Toulouse. The first one we named Kenzo. Coincidence? I don't think so.

I worked at a software company, then founded one with two friends. About a million euros raised, profitable in three years, sold to a larger software company. Through all of it I kept the Japan thread alive. Japanese customers. Business trips to Tokyo. I knew the acquirer had a Tokyo office, and I joked with my co-founders that they might send me.

They did. Not luck, or not only. I spoke the language, I knew the market, and I knew the headquarters strategy well enough to run it in Japan. I had put all the chances on my side. Then I asked my wife.

For me, this was going back to Japan. For her, it was uprooting the life she had just rebuilt, with two small boys, to jump into unknown terrain. No language, no friends, no head start. She said yes. She trusted me that it would be good. In December 2005 the four of us landed in Tokyo.

Home, 2005 to today

That was twenty-one years ago. Longer than the first two stays combined. Red Hat, then Salesforce. A daughter born in Tokyo. A house in the mountains of Nagano. Permanent residence. None of it felt like a decision. It felt like things settling where they belonged.

Every few years I would ask the family whether they wanted to try another country. To open their horizons, to see something else. The answer was always the same, and always unanimous. No. This is home.

The irony is not lost on me. Today all three of them live abroad, in three different countries. We probably taught them to be comfortable with who they are, wherever they go.

What thirty years gives you

On the phone, in Japanese, people do not notice I am not Japanese. Not until I say my name. It is not only the language. With Japanese people, I behave Japanese. With everyone else, I switch. That switch is most of my job today, bridging Japan and global teams. The thing I do for a living is the thing a thirteen-year-old started training for on Friday evenings in Rabat.

What it costs

Friends. As a kid, I lost mine every time we moved country. Now it happens in reverse. Our closest non-Japanese friends are expats. Every few years, they leave. We start again. It hurts, every time. Thirty years have not made it easier.

Where I am from

Some colleagues assumed I had taken Japanese nationality. I have not. I could have asked for it, and I would almost certainly have obtained it. But I am not represented by my passport.

I go back to France about once every five years. I love every day I spend there. But only because I know I will be back in Japan soon after. I love London too. So many religions and cultures, living side by side, in harmony. It is the opposite of Japan, one of the most homogeneous societies on earth. I love both. My mother is English. I am not quite English either.

In Japan, my wife and I get asked the question all the time. Where do you come from? We know perfectly well they mean our origins. We still take pleasure in answering "from Tokyo". A few laughs later, we clarify. But in many ways, the answer sets the tone for us in a deeper way. It is where we come from now.

This in-between was not easy as a teenager, or in my early twenties. It was the source of many interrogations. Where do I belong? What is my identity? I now have my answer. And I don't need a new passport for that. Most days, it feels like the best of all my worlds.

Which is why the next plan is already made. When I retire, half the year in Japan, half the year in Morocco. I decided that the same way I decided the first one. Early, out loud, and then I started preparing. Not by learning Arabic, to my wife's despair. By buying a house there.

What did you decide when you were thirteen? And did you keep practising?