STUDENT INTERVIEW: John Agapiou (Discovery)

John Agapiou

John Agapiou is from London and studied in the Japan Discovery program. Declan interviewed him while John was sitting on the floor of a cormorant fishing boat at Inuyama - grilled Ayu fish on a skewer in one hand, cold beer in the other.

Declan: So John, how long were you studying for?
John: I studied for 6 weeks from absolute beginner - a i u e o... there were 5 students in my class when I began.
D: What were the classes like?
J: I thought the classes were quite good. They were quick, well structured and I had good teachers. Some more listening would have been nice if possible, and it would have been great if the new Language Laboratory had been completed before I finished my time here.

D: Where were you staying during the course?
J: In a shared room in the student village. It was also quite good and I was comfortable. Having the computer and internet access was great, though some anti-virus scanning software would have been helpful.

D: Did you usually walk to the campus?
J: No no I had a bicycle. I couldn't have survived without one. I rented it from the dodgy bicycle shop on the other side of JR Okazaki station.
D: The dodgy bicycle shop? Not Nonoyama?
J: No I went to the Nonoyama shop first but unfortunately all of the bikes had already been rented out. So I went further down the road to another shop.

D: You were telling me earlier on the tour that the reason you wanted to come to Japan began with Aikido. Did you manage to join a club here?
J: Yes. I went to your office and Jon Walden (admissions coordinator) arranged it for me. That was good fun, I think it was important to be able to meet people outside Yamasa and of course to practise my Japanese a little. Also I think it is important to have the chance to experience the culture and not just read about it. Apart from Aikido, I also did a calligraphy class with Kato Erina sensei, and of course on the discovery tour itself it was good to get hands on experience.

D: Any problems?
J: Well, shopping was difficult because of the Kanji. Once I bought drinking yoghurt instead of milk. Little things like that could be frustrating at times, but kind of an adventure at other times too.

D: You've just completed an 8 day tour with us, what were some of the highlights for you?
J: The kaiseki food we ate at Ohmi-Hachiman looking over the waters of Lake Biwa. Making rice bowls and beer mugs on the potter's wheel at Tokoname. Nijo Castle in Kyoto was great. I like the nightingale floor boards, the sense of history around the palace. I liked the mannequins they had set up too - the shogun and the daimyo for example. It made it easier to visualise the events. The hiking in the mountains was good. I also loved the ryokan we stayed in when we were in Gion.
D: What did you like about it?
J: It was a weird little place. If you took my grandmother and made her a Japanese ryokan owner - then that place with its chintzy little sculptures and interior decoration is exactly what she would have. It was a great experience staying there though. I liked the simplicity of the room as well. The same with the place we stayed in at Ohmi-Hachiman.

D: On the previous tour some of the students were a bit shy about using the communal bath. One of them actually locked the change room as well so that no one could get in! Were there any apprehensions for you?
J: Um no, I was OK. If it had been a mixed sex bath then maybe I would have been shy but in the ryokans I was OK.

D: So you are glad that we stay in ryokans instead of hotels etc?
J: Yeah. The best thing about the tour is experiencing things and doing things that would normally have been fairly inaccessible for me due to the language barrier or lack of public transport. Staying in the ryokans is part of that. There were no foreigners in any of the places we overnighted in or had meals at. I mean I wouldn't have been able to order foods like we had in Pontocho or in Komagane simply because I couldn't have read the menu. And seeing Kato Erina sensei's face when she was eating the raw horse meat was priceless.

D: You just mentioned that you enjoyed the chance to experience and do things, as opposed to just seeing things. But we also did a fair bit of just seeing and watching. For you was that a drawback in a way?
J: Not really. That is part of any travel and of course at Kiyomizudera or on top of Mt Hiei we were of course just looking at things. A garden like the one at Ryoanji is of course spectacular to look at. Even on the Toyota Motor factory tour we were of course just looking, but all of those places were just as interesting. For me though it was the chance to actually do things that made it worthwhile. Apart from the pottery at Tokoname we made the fans from washi at Obara, and experiencing the tea house in the Genkyo-en Garden was good, I got to go for a walk by myself in the daimyo's garden at Hikone Castle just after that, its a different experience. I liked walking along the Nakasendo route between Magome and Tsumago and those little post towns. It is much better than just visiting museums.

D: We lost the chance to visit some destinations due to the big typhoon that we had, were there any other disappointments, or places that you wished we had gone to?
J: Yeah when the boat out to Chichibu island was cancelled due to the typhoon it was disappointing, but yeah well it couldn't be helped of course. I would have liked to have gone to an onsen, and I really wanted to see Mount Fuji as well.
D: Yeah, but it would be pretty hard to see everything in just a week. It gives you a reason to come back to Japan again though.
J: True. I wish we had been able to spend more time in Kyoto as well. A bit more leisurely.

D: The excerpts I printed for you from the new travel guide - were they any help? What improvements to the guide should there be?
J: Yeah there's a lot of detail. Too much historical detail for me perhaps, but they were very useful compared to the brochures. I think if they had been printed before the tour we could have done more preparation. Sometimes it was hard to understand some of the things you were explaining. For example at the battlefield at Sekigahara it was easy to kind of visual the positions of the troops and so on, but many of the historical names were beyond me. When we were at Mount Hiei and you would say names like Oda Nobunaga - well I knew the name but I just couldn't remember the significance. I think some pre-reading would have made it more understandable.

D: Damn. More work for me I guess...
J: Sorry! They are useful though. I'm glad you wrote them.

D: Just finally, was there anything you wish you had brought with you, or knew before you arrived?
J: I bought a number of electrical appliances with me from London - I couldn't use them here because of the different voltage, even if I had brought a plug adaptor, I would have needed a transformer too. So that was a waste of luggage. Also a good English/Japanese dictionary.

D: Well many thanks. I'd better let you drink your beer and I hope you enjoy the cormorant fishing tonight.
J: Cheers!