Jan. 20, 2004

6th Thomas K. (URL)

Technical immigrant to Canada

This is the record of "a life with harmony" of a technical immigrant to Canada, who is not much related to Soseki Natsume.

Note: Click a photo to enlarge it.

Soseki Natsume I started reading books with no relations to literature, in order to strengthen my own standpoint to literature, or rather to build it up newly. To put it simply, it is finally concluded to the word egotism and I started indulging in scientific research or philosophical meditation in order to establish the egotism. I have become very strong since I obtained the word of egotism in my hand. I have become very strong since I obtained the word of egotism in my hand. I have got plenty of courage. What directed to stand here and to go in this way there to me who had been dazed till then was really the word of egotism. I confess that I newly left from the word. "My egotism" --- Stated at Hojinkai of Gakushuin on Nov. 25, 1914 ---

1 First snow in Ottawa	2 Acquired qualifications	3 With daughter on my arm	4 Salmon fishing nearby
5 Camping trailer	6 Building sundeck	7 Building a table for tea ceremony	8 Building a tea room
9 Work bench	10 Software Engineers	11 Ice-cream day	12 Birthday gathering
13 Working	14 Class reunion	15 Thank you hug at a party	16 Received a small token
17 Let's fly	18 Just about take off	19 Flying at 2000'	20 Neighborhood from the sky
21 Company from the sky	22 Made a pool for relaxing	23 Small hill in the backyard	24 Pond and waterfall
25 Two cherries are blooming	26 Pair tree of over 50 years old	27 Crab apple in full bloom	28 Community of evening primroses
29 Like Christmas tree	30 Snow-removal operation	31 Chipmunk wants to join	32 A company from the pond
33 Parent for a robin chick	34 Lost kitten	35 Squirrel likes peanuts	36 Rabbit posed
37 Daughter's cat	38 Be quiet, I want to sleep	39 Our family pet, Puffy	40 At a tea room under construction
41 Demonstration at a college	42 Tea Ceremony in a snowy night	43 Tea ceremony for men only	44 Tea ceremony at California
45 Tea is a course at U. of I.	46 At the first tea ceremony	47 Oldest tea garden in Japan	48 Soseki Tatsume

Soseki Natsume When I considered what kind of qualification is the most desirable for future Japanese, the spirit to entertain an attainable ideal, to seek harmony with future neighbors, to hold forgiving sympathy toward existing weakness, and to make it as the interface on the contact surface toward current individual is thought to be important. Literature and morality --- Stated in Osaka on August, 1911 ---

Soseki Natsume There are two sides to human beings. I show up myself here and I appear to be a human at the same time. It is a human. I think that I would not be thought to be a human unless I have two sides. If I say which one is more important, I think that the person who want to do by oneself is more important than who would follow to someone else with other people from the current situation of Japan. Imitation and independent --- At a high school on Dec. 12, 1913 ---

From mails exchanged between Wabisuke and Thomas〜 Although the title like "Life with Japanese creativity and with harmony " was given, it was difficult and I could not finish exactly in the way. It looked like a report of an immigrant, if a scenario is attached to the collected photographs. Is it housing environment enviable to the Japanese who has given up halfway to the housing situation of Japan? Your house is in the lot of about 3500m2, isn't it? You're a doting father who works hard and takes care of your family. As a report of a life of a salaried person living overseas, I think that it would be interesting. I think that there is greatly related to Soseki! Is your annual income the Canada elite's average income? It is a little difficult question to answer. As many top-rated companies in Japan export a lot, the current exchange rate is very favor to the Japanese yen and it is higher compared to the difference of living standards. Therefore, when my annual income in Canadian dollar is converted into the Japanese yen, I think that it is quite low. Therefore, it is a little hard to spend some money in Japan. However, the price level here is quite lower than that in Japan, it might be easier for me to live here than for managers of big companies in Tokyo to live there. Are you on the road to success that Canadians envy? I am afraid that I have not had successful career in Canadian companies. However, since I worked from outside of the current company when there were five employees, I was hired when the company has about 30 employees and I have had worked in the backgrounds while the company was growing, I think that the owner might considered that I did some. My direct boss is the president and I talk occasionally. However, the position in a sense of the career success is low and I am just a manager. I think that you are a normal Japanese male who has supported your full-time housewife and children Yes, it is. But I am not like Japanese. I have not seen many Japanese Canadian who traveled by towing a large camping car, and I know some people owns a motor boat but not very many. I have not met a Japanese Canadian who flied here yet. Is there any marked difference as compared with the university schoolmate in Japan? If an annual income is changed into the Japanese yen by the present exchange rate, it would be close to the lowest among classmates. One of classmates drove from Chicago suddenly at a night. As soon as he walked into the house, he said, "I had thought you were probably living a life one class higher, but I saw your living level is two or more classes higher that me." I could not say nay for that. He liked music. When he saw two pianos in the house, he told it. It was my previous house in located in the residential area. Sokeki's literatures are modern containing always making an issue of money. I wonder he might have been the modern person who valued rationality. I also always considered rationality. When children were small, I changed to the company that offered better salary. I changed companies8 times in the past 20 some years. I quote a little bit from the lecture of Jun Eto. Soseki's studying abroad in London was an incident very important for his life. Soseki confronted Western civilization, he strove for research of English literature by his full power. Although it was not thought that the Ministry of Education was stingy with the expense of Soseki's studying-abroad for a foreign student (he was especially selected among professors of high schools of those days, and studying abroad was ordered with government expense) of the Ministry of Education, he lived a very poor life in London. Scholars also have the custom of holding books in their study room, as it is true today. Soseki did his research of English literature for his own collection of books. Therefore, he bought books earnestly in London. He believed that it was one mission with important studying abroad to bring these back to home. He tended to consider how it would correspond or how it would be different between the concept of the literature in the East and the concept of the literature in Europe and in Britain. Therefore, he became not to be able to eat what he wanted to eat. He staved off hunger pains by eating a roll bread and by drinking the water of a park. It was a very miserable story. Ougai Mori who was often compared with Soseki went to Germany to study, and he had a glamorous life. There was no such chance that the army paid such money, considering the situation of those days. It was very much amazed us that Ogai had such money and Soseki did not have. However, when I was watching documentary several days ago, I found it the exact reason. Do you know why? It is not a stock but a money exchange. When Soseki studied abroad, the value of yen was half value and it was 2 yen per dollar. When Ogai studied abroad, a dollar was valued to 1yen. Therefore, though Soseki received the same amount of money as Ogai, it means that he had only half money of Ogai's. Therefore, I always think that economic life is very important. Money has a very important meaning for Soseki. Money is not simply only the object of a desire but also one symbol of human relations, and it is the sign of the time itself. When I was allowed to study in University of Illinois from a company, I received only $280 a month as a living expense. I also received 60% of my salary separately, I spent some of them. However, some friends who were sent by the government official, such as from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, or the Self-Defense Forces received $500 a month, they lived in quite different ways. So, I thought that people who were sent by the government were luckier. I heard that one person who was sent by the Ministry of Health and Welfare at the time has become the certain governor now. I wander how the person who had liked playing mahjong could be a governor. You are learning the way of tea ceremony in your manuscript, I thought that you have awareness of Japanese, and you own the identity that leads to Soseki. Now, I have a question for you. Where did you have the party? What did you talk about or what was the subject? What was the Canadian's reaction to Japanese? When I worked like the office manager of the Toronto office of the company of the software development. This was the Christmas party that I held and I invited people of the company of our customer in Toronto. The lady was the person in charge of the customer side of the software in which I was doing development charge. Since the project was behind considerably when I started, and I tried to catch up in a different way, so she was not happy at the beginning. We caught up the schedule luckily and the project was not delayed much. She was our customer and I presented a carnation to her, she was very glad and gave me a hug. The branch manager o the Canadian branch was supplied about this. It was a kind of gossip for a while, that the difficult lady thanked me. The second picture shows that the branch manager gave me a small token for the party. I am not normally treated as Japanese here. I am simply treated as a normal Canadian. Therefore, as long as I work in a Canadian company, there is no much reaction to Japan especially because of me. We purchase a lot of parts from major companies of Japan. We admire the technology of Japan but we sometime do not understand well in the way of carrying out business. Senior level of people visited us from a large corporation in December and we could not understand kind of their selfish way of business. We were not happy at all and the meeting did not go well. Large corporations tend not to trust Canadian smaller companies. Therefore, I go in between and try to work the business goes smoother. Soseki always considered the West and the East and he was also agonized, wasn't he? Do you have good Canadian friends? You did not get your current job by the school tie, you did not any entertainment of Japanese society, you were not seriously suffered being bound with the vertical relation, and you seemed to have had good time to take care of your family well. I think that you are a quite different salaried person from the way of Japanese corporate warriors. I even feel that it showed that the unusualness of Japanese society was surfaced. In North America, I did not see much about academic clique, especially similar to the academic clique of Japan at all. When I applied the very first company in Canada, I asked if they need the university transcripts. They told me that since I had had some work experience at a famous company in Japan, and that they did not need to know about my university. It might be true even today. The president of the company and my best friend passed away from their overwork. When I held my baby daughter on a weekend, she cried as she did not recognized me because I came back home late everyday. When I taught English at a private school, I saw that many students were running around and having fun in the train on the way back home after the school. If I do not send my daughter to such private school in the evening, my daughters might be isolated from others even at a normal school. I found in a newspaper that a female high school student wrote, "I worked harder than he and my grade was better than his at the high school. But he entered a university and I failed the university. Some other boy got a good job and I could not get a job. Why was it discriminated against a woman like this?" By then, I had received my education at a graduate school in the States, and I had learned the method of North American education by myself. In order to give up on the education of Japan and not to let my daughters have the similar experience, I had to give up being a salaried person in Japan and I tried to escape out of Japan. Although it would be much easier for me if I had stayed in Japan, but I think it was good when I see what my daughters are doing now. It is a bit hard to define a Canadian. More than 50% of people who live in Canada were born outside of Canada. I am also Japanese Canadian. I have friends of Japanese, Chinese, German Canadians and also friends of Canadians who were born in Canada. Although Soseki ma ironical remarks on public masters of the tea ceremony, he formed a friendship with Issotei Nishikawa who was the individual master of the tea ceremony. I wrote it in the past log of my notebook. I have read it. What you think is the most important to let Canadians know the way of tea ceremony in future? People in North America do not like to learn only manners to serve tea. They normally want to learn principles and reasons. The theory is needed. They may ask for just a bow, "What is that bow for now?" Therefore, it is easy for me to talk. Sine, I also asked to try to understand why. Unfortunately I am not to manners to serve tae, but I read a lot of books and I could explain some a certain level. It might be difficult for Japanese female instructors for tea ceremony to do so.　 You told that it is difficult for a woman. The person in front of you is not a man.。 I am sorry. I made rude remarks. I told rude from the little experience that I learned from and I talked to few instructors. I am sorry. A friend of mine was a leader of the group that is carrying out meditation of Canadians, I was invited to a meeting, I talked about history and meditation related to the tea ceremony, and I also did the demonstration. Moreover, I was also invited to the restaurant that tried to cook Japanese-style dishes and I explained about the tea ceremony and tea ceremony dishes (quite often it is misunderstood with big dinners). Although this might be a wrong way, I think that I can teach the way of tea ceremony in the proper way. The ethics that Soseki considered as his "first principle" is the courtesy in other words. Is the spirit for which you ask the tea ceremony such the "first principle "? I am afraid that the courtesy is being lost now both in North America and in Japan. I think I always value of it. I worked at a Japanese company for 6 years. The head was a quite difficult person. A manager of a friend of mine had a big trouble with him and I tried to discuss about the problem with him. I guess he was upset and he told me to leave the company if I did not like here. So I quit the company on the following morning. I heard later that he told someone else that he did a regrettable matter. Then I thanked him that I worked there for 6 years with him. When he was called back to Japan about a year after, I dropped at his house after drove for about one hour, to say good-bye about 2 days before he left and I brought a small token of my thanks. Although some other people who worked with him do not have friendship, I still have friendship with him even now. I think that the courtesy is important and necessary. So does tea ceremony. If I did not earn the way of tea ceremony from Ms. Adachi (female instructor), I might have been different. Sokeki saw the discrimination toward yellow races with his own eyes in Britain, and he could not go well with them. In that respect, you have contact with white people there naturally and I think that you are a successful international Japanese. The time might have helped it. I would say that it is very impressive with the education of your children. I would say that it might be lucky that you did not go to Britain but went to Canada as a new world. Shall we put the national flag illustration of Canada and Japan into this page? If my site can also contribute a few to the image of the company in Ontario, Canada, which you work, I would be more than I can dream of. Ms. Wabisuke Tsubaki. Thanks for your great mails.

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