We all look so old!

Sorry - did not make the event, but sounds like it was fun. I had a broken aircraft in Borneo and had to assembly another aircraft in Zhuhai China the weekend of the reunion. Anyone likes flying small aircraft over oceans, jungle etc. and would like a relaxing life come and join me on one of the flights! After each flight I seem to age 10 years............... a little different to my Airbus days, anyway I now speak Chinese as well as the Japanese, travel from around Asia every week and discovered there is more to Asia than Japan. Japan is still though my first home in Asia!

Pictures of the Tokyo reunion from Dermot

ETP-IV - The Next Generation.  Alyssa (Ally) Tully (9) attends the Tokyo reunion

 
Ladies table - Hiroko & Alyssa (Tully) with Kumiko (Barthelemy) & Vanida (Visscher)

' and sitting to my right ...the lovely Kumiko (wife of Jean Barthelemy)

Patrick who simply 'radiates' his happiness

 
"Double Dutch" - Herbie & Jos

Ulrike - Eberhard's wife

Hiroko - Anthony's wife

Erik who traveled all the way from Denmark

Eberhard - back on his second (or is third?) posting in Japan

Happy to be going Dutch - Vanida Visscher and Tara Van der Valk

Some more pictures of our recent get-together in Aoyama (especially of the attractive ladies who attended and made it such a memorable night!). And for all of you who could not get to Tokyo this time, don't worry - there was talk on the night of holding the next reunion in Europe some time next year (at least it was a serious discussion from what I recall - before Anthony Tully made me join him for a 'nijikai' followed by another 'nijikai' ;>).   Twenty five years on  - well some things never change!  

 

At some point, I believe we toasted our 'absent friends', but like I say, my memory is somewhat hazy, but I do remember there were many lovely ladies at the party - err.. I mean - reunion!

Cheers,

Dermot 

Pictures of the reunion

Well, we've had our reunion. 10 out of 35 were there, which is not a bad result taking into account that the event was held in Tokyo. It was nice to see each other again, hear the stories about what happened to each of us (and the gossip about the others of course) and, by the end of the evening, to realise that actually we haven't changed that much in the last 25 years. Many thanks to Tony for organising this!

Click on the pictures above to enlarge. If you wish to upload pictures yourself, just add a new post and use the icon for adding a picture. You must be registered as a member of this blog to create new posts. If you'd like full resolution pictures for printing, please let me know.

Kind regards,

Patrick

Hideko and Christian W. could not be there

Hello everyone,

If I could summarize in a few words what happened to Hideko and me along the past 20 years, I would say: "IN & OUT". Some might say, no wonder, but actually I would never have imagined that we would go out of Japan and back in again so many times.

Let's look back at our diary in a very simple matter starting from 1985, end of ETP IV:

3 years in Japan, 6 years in France, 2 years in Japan, 5 years in France, 6 years in Japan, 1,5 years in France... if you count well, this leads us to 2008!

Another interesting statistics: 60 round trips between France and Japan during the last stay in Japan. I'm sure it does ring a bell to some of you.

Well I survived and we are happy to settle down in France now, and most probably for the rest of my working life, which should end after another set of 3 summer olympic games... ;>)

In conclusion, I would say that I shall do my best to be in Japan for the November "summit", but due to family-in-law matters, it is very difficult to plan for now.

Hoping to hear from some of you soon. Cheers. Christian W.

Patrick Goossens

So, let me be the first one.

At the time of ETP, I was together in Japan with my wife Lut and our 2 years old daughter Julie. I was working for Agfa. After ETP we stayed for another 3 years, and got ourselves another daughter, Stefanie. Although she was born during the holidays in Belgium, she was "made in Japan". Even still today we sometimes wonder what impact that has had...

In 1988 we returned to Belgium where I became divisional manager at Agfa, interesting job but no direct relation anymore to Japan. Looking back on that time, I guess moving back to Belgium was a bigger and more stressful event than moving to Japan 5 years earlier. But after some "adjustment", we managed, settled down, got ourselves a new home and... another daughter, Karolien. Although I had to travel quite a lot for my job at Agfa, it was never to Japan, mostly to the USA and in Europe. After another 5 years I was hit hard by the mid-life-crisis: fed up with the international travelling, I quit Agfa, and spent two times two years in smaller Belgian companies. How wrong can one be? I didn't miss Agfa, but I missed the international environment, the very reason for which I left Agfa in the first place. I guess it was just a proof of the proverb "The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill". So I changed companies again and, in the mean time 12 years ago, I joined the Belgian multinational Tessenderlo Group, where I'm responsible for woldwide sales of the gelatine division. Now this is fun. Gelatine is an unknown world to anyone who is not in that industry. Since we have plants and sales affiliates all over the world, I again spend a lot of time in airplanes and waiting at airports. My first trip, 3 weeks after I joined the company, was of course to... Japan. And I immediately told our salesteam that I didn't care too much about how they split up the regional responsibilities but that Japan (and Korea) was for me. In the mean time we have continuously reshuffled responsibilities, but I'm still doing Japan.

So for the last 12 years I travel back to Japan twice or three times per year. I usually combine it with a visit to Seoul. But I always go first to Korea and then to Japan. This way it really feels like coming home when one lands at Narita. On every occasion I take the time to go back to Yokohama where we used to live in ETP-times, to visit our former landlady and our babysitter (she's 83 in the mean time). I never realised that still so many of us were still (or again) living in Japan otherwise I would have taken contact. Business-wise, we were not very satisfied about our agent but we kept him because he speaks reasonable English. However, for the last years I have been contacting potential customers directly, and although it has taken some time, we now have a flourishing direct business in Japan... all in Japanese. So in the end, the language course served it's purpose. Most of the discussions I have with our customers are held in Japanese. While speaking is no problem, understanding their reply has become more difficult. But just like 25 years ago, they're all very friendly and pleased that a "gaijin" makes the effort to speak their language and that pays off.

Family-wise things are also going well. We live in a nice area just north of Antwerp in Belgium. Lut has enough work with the house and the charity organisation in which she's active. Julie and Stefanie have both finished university and live on their own (with the boy-friends of course). Julie lives in Antwerp and is working in the fashion industry, Stefanie moved to Barcelona. Karolien has just become 16, so she will be around for another couple of years I guess. When we returned from Japan I picked up my old hobbies again: first gliding and then motorflying. I ran some marathons but I guess I'm getting to old for that now, bought myself a motorbike (which Lut sold again after I ended up in the hospital after an accident) and lately I got very involved in photography. Looking back on our time in Japan, we have to admit that it still dominates our life in many aspects. Our home is furnished with Japanese tanzu's, when we have guests we often cook Japanese style, when I have Japanese customers coming over we invite them at home... It is remarkable that such a "short" period in one's life can have such a big impact on the rest of it. But I guess that's true for most of the ETP-ers.

So, that's about it. Looking forward to hear from all of you and hoping to see many of you in Tokyo next autumn.

Patrick

ETP IV Weblog

Hi All,

So that's it. It has taken 25 years, but finally some of us took the initiative to get in contact again with each other. Many thanks to Anthony and the other survivors in Tokyo for that! It will be nice gathering again in Tokyo after so many years. I understood however not too many of us will be able to make it, which is quite understandable... for most of us Tokyo is not around the corner.

That's why we set up this blog. Many of us have gone quite different ways after ETP IV. It would be nice to hear from each other what fate had in mind for us. Tell us what happened to you, add a picture... it will save those who come to Tokyo in November from the embarrassment of not recognising each other anymore.

Thanks in advance for your contribution and have fun!

Patrick