No real reason. At least, no reason that seems to satisfy the curiosity of those that keep asking me. I learned French at high school, and spent a year in a Greek university studying chemistry in Greek. So, by the time I graduated from university, I was fluent in two languages in addition to English. At the time, I had planned to join the British Foreign Office (FCO) as a diplomat. Since I had already visited most countries in Europe, I decided to go somewhere totally different. I didn’t think about where all that much. At that time, and probably still now, anybody from an English speaking country with a university degree can easily find work teaching English in Japan. So, that’s where I decided to go. Finally, I decided to spend six months backpacking in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and China, and then spend a year in Japan before returning to the UK to work as a diplomat.
I only spent six months teaching English before I changed jobs and started to work at a translation company, but that one year soon became two, and then three. In the end I gave up on the idea of joining the FCO and decided to stay in Japan. That was 18 years ago . . .
