A Year in Kuwana (Part 1)
Thursday, December 3, 2015
I got out of the taxi and stared up at the gigantic tower that reached up into the sky. It was the headquarters of Mie Bank, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Santander, and was to be my workplace for the next year. My name is Rob Menzies, and I am a Senior IT specialist for Santander, sent to Japan on a year’s placement to develop and implement the online banking system of our new acquisition.
I shook my head. Wasn’t Japan supposed to me technologically advanced? So how come they don’t have online banking? One of the basic human rights in 2016. Still, it wasn’t up to me to debate the ins and outs of the situation – it was up to me to drag Mie Bank customers into the 21st century and get the hell out as soon as possible, back to dear old England.
As I shot up to the 68th floor in the high-speed lift, I went over my mental Japanese culture notes in preparation for meeting Mie Bank’s Board of Directors. The lift doors opened and I stepped out, ready to do the bowing and scraping bit.
After the Board meeting, I went down to my new office on the 30th floor to meet my IT department. It was a small department. One of the staff I knew already, but the other three were complete unknowns. Entering the office, I looked round for John Hudson, a 30-year-old American I knew from several conferences.
“Ah, John! Glad you’re here! You can show me the ropes.”
“Rob, I heard you couldn’t avoid this project.”
“Avoid is the correct word! The last thing I wanted to do is spend a year in Japan. A year without my Friday night booze-up and Saturday football. Just what is there to do here? No football, I presume, and no lads night out, eh?”
“Definitely no lads night out; they’re all very restrained here. Karaoke bars are the raciest things around Yokkaichi, but there is sport if you like baseball.”
“Baseball? I used to watch that in my youth a bit; they had a late-night show on Channel 5. Fell asleep to that after a night on the pop at college. Yeah, I could give that a whirl.”
John called over one of the senior engineers and introduced him as Mr. Yamaguchi. Turns out Mr. Yamaguchi is a great fan of the local Steel Dragons that play in Kuwana, 13km up the line. Not only that, but he has a son in high school who is eligible for the LRS draft this coming year. I couldn’t get him to shut up about his son after that; he was very proud and hopeful that the Steel Dragons would pick his son.
One thing I did learn was that this weekend was the Steel Dragons’ end-of-season awards bash. This year, in a radical move for Japanese baseball, they combined their award ceremony with a display put on by the Japan Craft Beer Association. This was more like it! Beer and baseball! I was suddenly a lot more hopeful about this year. John, Mr. Yamaguchi and I would go to the bash. That would be the perfect way to learn about the local team while getting off my face on beer!
