* This essay column is written by a longtime foreign resident of Japan.

When I first used to go home on vacation after coming to Japan in 1986, my friends always asked me if I missed England. It was a stupid question. If you cut me don't I bleed red, white and blue? Don't I still have dirt under my nails from my working-class upbringing in the industrial Don Valley in the North of England?

OK, that might be going too far, but doesn't every right-minded person who spends any length of time away from their home country miss it?

But I believe that if you can't be polite, you should always be vague, so I always muttered some generalizations about women with natural curves, Joshua Tetley's Best Bitter (beer), sausage sandwiches and Marmite, and a cup of hot Bovril and a pork pie at halftime at a football (remember it's England) match, and reruns of Carry On films on television -- nothing too philosophical or intellectual, just something that "the lads" could relate to.

No one asks me that question anymore. Maybe they've grown tired of hearing the same old answers or perhaps they assume that if I've spent 18 years in Japan, I can't be missing England.

If you were to ask me that question when I'm pushing or being pushed onto an Odakyu, Keio or Yamanote line train in a morning during my daily race to get to my office time clock before it clicks past 10; or I'm trying to book a court two months in advance for an hour of tennis; or I'm trying to finish all my work so that I can take a half-day's leave to go to my son's class observation, I'd probably say that what I miss most about living in England is the time that I always seemed to have.

Of course when I'm in England now I'm not tied into a nine to five existence. I do have time to stand and stare, and sometimes smile, even in a life full of care.

I have the time to wait for the next train when the one I have already waited 40 minutes for is canceled without explanation, or when the driver of a London Underground (subway) train disappears for his break and leaves the train and its passengers stranded because his relief hasn't turned up. (It was one of the very few times that I got all misty eyed about the Yamanote Line.)

I have the time to look for another and another, and another public telephone that works as all the ones I tried were either jammed because no one had bothered to empty the cash drawers or were broken because someone had emptied (robbed) the drawers. (I've always thought Japan's pretty green, pink and red plastic public phones would be very popular in England.)

And I have the time to drag my family around London for a couple of hours because our hotel room is not ready, although we arrived well past check-in time. Even my Japanese wife thought that was worth complaining about, especially as it happened three years in a row. (Where is a good old irasshaimase when you really need one?)

But vacations are beguiling times. Everything has a rose-colored hue that often spills over and masks reality.

If you'd stopped me while I was working in London and trudging over Westminster Bridge every morning on my way to my office south of the River Thames, I would have told you, politely, that I didn't have the time to give you directions or point out St. Stephen's Chapel or Cleopatra's Needle, or explain that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Westminster Palace in 1605 and that it is where Charles I was tried and sentenced to death in 1649.

I truly was the dull soul that William Wordsworth said could just pass by such sights.

I had no more time in London than I do in Tokyo. What do I miss about living in England? I wish I had the time to tell you.

I'd welcome any comments or opinions, in Japanese or English, about my column. You can write or fax me at The Weekly, or e-mail me at jtweekly@japantimes.co.jp

The Japan Times Weekly: July 17, 2004
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