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
