John Burton 4th August 1986.
Dear Ross
Thanks for the letter. It is raining heavily outside as I type up this let-ter to you. I am preparing for my trip to Hokkaido on Wednesday morn-ing so I hope the rain lets up by then.
So, how are things at your end? I hear that your car is going better but 1 have never seen one as old as yours on the roads here. You would be appalled at the price of used Japanese cars, but I am shocked at the price asked for second hand Minis at the moment. Can you believe $NZ21 ,000 for a three year old Mini Cooper? Its true. Minis are considered the acme of the compact sports car scene, especially as there is a heavy accent on the "Classic" 60's British look at the moment. Keep up the work on Liz . She may make an engineer yet.
Take care with the skiing. Tell me about how you got on in your next letter.
I am still sceptical about your plans to learn Japanese but I will send over anything that you may need. I suggest that you get hold of a sterio unit as I will be sending over casette material. I also have a number of students that would be only too happy to have somebody to talk to in En-glish. They could swap language lessons with you. How about that? Let me have a copy of the course you enrol for. I expect that you will join some sort of language school as learning the basics is best done under
supervision until such times as you can study on your own. Anything happening much in New Zealand at the moment?
I havn't heard much from anybody at all. I am having a great time at the moment, hoping that the rain will ease, off. This trip will put me back about $2000 but will be worth it. I havn,t had a holiday in Japan yet.
28th of August, 1986 Dear Ross
Thanks for the letter. I am busy today with my own computer so I thought that 1 would take the opportunity to write out a reply.
The Summer is coming to and end here, it is still pretty hot but the wind seems to be blowing more and the school holidays are almost at an end. I return to teaching next week and am using what time I have left to relax and prepare myself for the kids and students. Today I spent the morning reading slowly through an article about motorcycling in Spain out of a glossy motorcycle magazine called "Goggle," I have no idea where the Japanese find these names. I find it much easier to read Japanese nowdays and I really feel that the written language can be overcome if you put enough time into studying it. This has become quite a hobby for me during my stay here. I didn't want to take up any of the typical things
residents in Japan do such as Karete, Judo, Kendo, Ludo, Flower arrang-ing, playing Japanese instruments,watching Sumo wrestlers, I thought it more of a challenge to have a go at the language itself. After all, there's an abundance of printed material about and you can study by yourself without some expensive, overbearing teacher dictating your every move.
I went touring in Hokkaido on the RZ this Summer as well, I might have forgotten to mention it to you earlier. I went with a friend of mine,
he had done the trip before and so it was assumed that he would know were to go on this occaision. We didn't get lost that often but I ended up doing most of the navigation. Hokkaido roads are like those of Canter-bury but the speed limit is a stifling 50km/hr . Radar traps were legion and my buddy got caught in one. 83km/hr cost him $NZ390 . I had a great time. I think I shall go back there again next Summer. Incidently, I travelled about 4,000km during the ten days I was away , the cost of pet-rol came to about $350. The RZ averaged about 17 .5km/litre. It's a thirsty beast but very reliable. Great for touring .
Now back to you in NZ. Good to hear about your thesis coming along on schedule. I would like to do a masters one of these days . Probably in commerce, with a japanese flavour. I'm glad that you liked the Japanese-films, were they in Japanese or had they been dubbed? I don't think that any of my friends would have seen them, I could ask if know the Japanese title.
11th of September, 1986. Dear Ross,
Thanks for the speedy reply to my letter.
Good luck with all the forms. It is quite an exhausting process , all these scholarships. I don't know about USA. They don't pay very well .
In Japan, fads are a way of life. Everybody is trying to out-do every-body else. The current fad is for koala bears. They have koala comics , stationery, chocolate koala snacks etc. I think that the koalas are on the way out. with the changing of the seasons everything is in a state of tran-sition at the moment. I try and keep away from fads as they are expen-sive and you can't get your money back on the merchandise if you try to
sell your post-fad koala collection. People just won't buy that kind of thing.
The RZ is doing very well. Always a little bit on the rich side but after 21,000km I still have't had to de-coke her. The RZ engines run very clean compared to the RD's of old. I'll probably de-coke when I come to re-bore at around 40,000km. The plugs never foul and she starts every time without the choke. with so little chrome or bare aluminium I can
keep the RZ outside for months without corrosion or rust. I must change the fork-oil soon. Maybe tomorrow if I have the time. Have you got
around to buying a bike yet? I guess not if you are going overseas. I'm getting back into the teaching routine after a much needed Summer holiday. I have enclosed a photo taken in Tokyo of some of my students. They are about 16 years old. what do you think? Cute, huh!
24th of September, Dear Ross,
Thanks for the letter. I thought I'd reply straight away and get the letter off to you before the post office closes.
If you want to live in Japan you are going to need rather a lot of money or a fat study grant. The fatter the better.
To say a little about living expenses in Japan.... The expenses are generally higher, for instance: Monthly Expeses for Mr. X living in a small apartment in the suburbs, 1 hour from Tokyo. * =Optional
Rent 40,000
Food (at home) 25,000
Gas, electricity, water 5,000
Telephone 6,000
Eating out 15,000
Booze 4,000
Train tickets 10,000
Clothing 4,000
Petrol for bike 5,000
Bike Insurance+Reg. * 10,000
Health Ins 6,000
Local Tax 8,000
Petty Cash (odds and ends) 20,000
158,000 per month to live in a civilised
manner
I do have rather a lot of money left over after expenses. That was my in-tention in the first place. Back to your question about fashion in Japan. Koalas, I think, are on the way out. The ski season will be upon us soon and there will be an avalance of penguins.
The Japanese pop records usually have a sprinkling of meaningless En-glish in them. If you would like, I'll send you a cassette. Bad videos are also exreamly popular in Japan. The Texas Chainsaw Murderer is alive and well and living in Roppongi, Tokyo.
The students in my photograph look a lot better than my students at the University. Believe me.
Maybe you should come to Japan after you finish your Masters. Spend a few months here, learn the language, make contacts with Japanese
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versties and Japanese researchers in your field. After you return to New Zealand you will have the contacts which are are important when going for a scholarship.
22nd of October, 1986. Dear Ross,
Thanks for the letter which arrived today. I have been quite busy lately with teaching. I am looking forward to the next break due sometime be-fore Christmas.
I hope that you manage to get hold of the GRE books. I would have ex-pected the University to already have bought a complete set if they want any of their students to have a reasonable chance of doing well in the test. After all, one would expect a University to want its students to put up a good showing in any international examination. If they don't have copies then they either have their heads in the sand of don't care much for their students studying overseas.
I know that you have applied to several foreign unversities for permis-sion to study but have you heard anything back from them yet? Are any of the University Staff behind you or are you all alone? You won't be able to take a sabbatical until you have tenure at some place of learning; what are your chances of securing a lectureship?
What kind of position would you like to have at a University? With the falling birthrate and the consequent decrease in the number of stu-dents entering Universities in NZ the competition for teaching positions will no doubt become more and more fierce. Do you think that you will make it? I hope that I am not depressing you at all
It must be a real boon to have a computer to assist you in the writing — 22 —
up of your thesis. What are some of the things you have concluded from your work? It has been a while since you last mentioned anything about the thesis itself. By the way. what did the supervisors have to say about your chapter that you handed in last Sunday? 1 hope the reviews were good.
So. GST hits NZ. I'm glad that I'm not around at moment. Life is so much simpler in that respect here in Japan. No GST tax. The income tex rates are much lower too.
13th of November, 1986. Dear Ross,
Thanks for the letter. Responding quickly to correspondence is the first step to life in an ordered environment and enlightenment.
So. the University hasn't got the GRE test book series. Figures that they havn't really taken the trouble to find out about the exam and how to help their students pass. Keep onto them about it, you may get some-thing out of them before its too late.
I thought that you would like the little cartoon insert. The characters (especially the girls) are Europeanised to quite an extent even though they are supposed to be Japanese. The cartoonists try to give the charac-ter an exotic aura by adding foreign traits to such as hair that is not black (in the TV show one of the girls has green hair and the other red), height, blue eye etc. The most popular characters in Japanese cartoons are europeanised. Only the underdogs and anti-heroes are instantly rec-ognisable as being Japanese. Having one's eyes done is going out of fashion at the moment. We are seeing a kind of hybrid which isn't trying to be European, just trying to achieve an image of is non Japanese. It's
95% escapism Its a fantasy world that they are living in, you should see the comics that they have here. Unbelieveable.
I think that your friend has a great opportunity to travel to China and learn the language and a little of the culture. Although he might not make money in the first couple of years the experience gained could be very valuable in the management and consulting fields. Companies are always on the lookout for people with experience.
I sure hope the Kiwis get the cup I wonder if the Americans might call in the French to sink a certain vessel. I wouldn't put it past them.
13th of Decemher, 1986. Dear Ross,
Thanks fo the letter. I hope that you got my Christmas card. keep up the work on the thesis, I bet that you will look back on the days that you spent writing it and laugh although I don't suppose that there is too much to be pleased about at the moment.
I am reading a lot about KZ7 in the newspapers at the moment although I have't seen anything on television to date. It really must be creating quite a wave of patriotism in NZ at the moment. The country could do with it.
I hear that the stock market is really booming at the moment. People putting themselves into debt to play the stocks. I am a little concerned about when the bubble will burst. Somebody is going to lose a lot when it happens.
I'm glad that you noticed that cartoon I stuck on the last letter. There are a great deal of inaccurate portrayals of Western life in the Japanese press nowdays. That is only one of the minor ones. I wouldn't pay too
much attention to what you see in documentaries about Japan. They are often very one-eyed and exagerate about what is really happening. There is, however, always a grain of truth hidden in there somewhere. The scenes you saw were real, but most Japanese would be equally amazed if they saw the same program.
So, nothing yet from overseas. Keep waiting. If nothing turns up, what will you do? Don't play too many video games. Home video games are all the rage at the moment with Japanese kids. The main unit costs about $130 and each game cartridge is about $50. Some of the kids I teach have ten or more cartridges. Where they get the money and the amount of time they spend in front of the tube defies imagination.
The big movie on at the moment is "Howard the Duck."
Have you heard about it yet? It's aimed at the teenage market and is a big hit in Tokyo.
Thats about it for the time being. Have a Merry Christmas etc Cheers,
John.
