When Richard and I were hired to come to Japan to teach English, I started this blog to share our experience with family and friends. I also welcome anyone else who comes across it. Some people stop by once while others have become regular readers. One such person is tokyo5.

I’ve occasionally been asked who this person is. “Sometimes it seems like he’s trying keep tabs on what you say,” said one regular reader. “Doesn’t this annoy you?” she asked.

Tokyo5 is actually an American whose job brought him to Japan 18 years ago at the age of 20. He ended up marrying a Japanese girl and staying. They live in Tokyo and have three children, hence the pen name, tokyo5. Apparently, he rarely returns to the States. Though his comments often do come across as somewhat critical, I give him the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think he intends to be rude. In fact, he may not even realize that his comments sometimes sound that way. He’s just incredibly proud of his knowledge of the Japanese language and culture and very defensive about anything Japanese. He actually keeps me on my toes. I know that if I slip up and get my information wrong, he’ll be sure to let me know! His own blog is an interesting source of information about many things Japanese. You can find it at tokyo5.wordpress.com.

I am able to remove comments from my blog if I choose to do so but I’ve never done that. WordPress does a good job of weeding out spam so I’ve never had to deal with anything offensive and if a comment appears that seems somewhat suspicious, I’m notified and can accept or delete it before it’s published. A few of tokyo5’s comments have gone that route but I’ve never deleted any of them. The only time I was tempted to do so was when a negative sounding comment was directed toward another regular reader.  Even in that case, however, I decided not to interfere.  I welcome all legitimate comments including those that disagree with me. In fact, I wish more people would comment. Much of what I share here is my opinion or my own interpretation or reflection on what I’m experiencing so it may be different from someone else’s. That doesn’t make either one of us wrong but it does open the door to interesting discussion.

When I first started writing the blog, I thought that it would be a one year project but now that our time here is drawing to a close, I’ve decided to keep it going indefinitely. Not only does it fulfill my desire to continue writing but now that some of my Japanese friends are reading it, perhaps it will allow me to share life in Canada with them!