CHAPTER FOURTEEN: MY LIFE IN THE ORIENT

I left for Japan on July 19, 1991. I was thirty years old. I had virtually no money and I had no chance of finding a decent career in Canada because of my court troubles. I was able to speak very little Japanese. I boarded the plane a very lonely man and disembarked as an even lonelier one. I had had to cut off all contact with my friends and relatives in Canada because my problems with the federal government and likely with my provincial government would have made it dangerous for anyone, who had anything to do with me.

I arrived at Narita Airport outside Tokyo at about five minutes to six o'clock in the evening on July 21, 1991 on Tokyo time. No one from my company, Interac, met me. I had been told that no one would meet me, but I still thought that this was strange. A room had been booked for me in a business hotel in a Tokyo entertainment district, which is called Ikebukuro. I had been sent the hotel address, which was written in both English and Japanese. I was told that I had to take a bus from the airport to another hotel and then get a taxi there for my hotel. I left on the bus at about seven o'clock and arrived at the first hotel at about eight thirty. I showed a cab driver the address for my hotel and he asked me where the hotel was in broken English. I was shocked and I told him that I did not know. The cab driver asked a doorman or valet at another fancy hotel where my hotel was and he was given directions. This lack of knowledge on the part of the cab driver surprised me, but I learned later that this was usual because very few streets in Japan have a name and so addresses are nothing more than a building number and an area name.

I made it into bed by nine o'clock. I was too tired to eat and I fell asleep right away. Jet lag and the length of the trip had caught up with me.

The next morning, I phoned the Interac office and they said that I had to find my way to their office by myself. I thought that that was odd, too. I was given directions over the phone and I found the office easily. I was surprised and I was proud of myself.

The Interac staff seemed disinterested in me over the phone. I felt that I was not being treated properly by the company, but I decided to reserve judgement for later. I did not have long to wait. When I walked into the office, I was introduced to the Head Teacher for foreign teachers. This man seemed nice, but something was troubling him. He did not say much to me, but led me to a small room. It was a supply room and it housed the office photocopier. There was a metal, folding chair just inside the doorway. He left the door to the room open, but he left the light in the room off and he told me to sit in the chair. He told me that he was going a short distance down the hallway into a room, where the board of directors was having a meeting. He told me to wait in that little room until he came back for me.

While I was waiting in the little room, a Japanese, female staff member came in to use the photocopier. My presence startled her greatly and my inability to speak Japanese at that time exacerbated the situation. She made an issue of me being in the little room and took the board of directors to task for it. It was obvious that she thought it strange for me to be waiting there. I thought that it was strange, too.

As I was in the little room, I overheard the board of directors and the Head Teacher talking. References were made to the KNX job. I thought that it was odd that those people would know about that job. The Head Teacher said that he thought that the board of directors was being mean to me. They told him that I was in Japan and that it was too late to do the news job. The board of directors said that they had an even better job than the initial one that I had been promised. The indication was that I had to go to bed with a Japanese woman before they would give me the better job. They felt that I had to prove myself linguistically and sexually before I got a promotion or a high-level job in the company. The directors had been told that I did not know Japanese. One of the directors said that a certain Jon Burzynski would be mean to me then as he would be in charge of me and any of my possible connections. This particular director seemed to be the main company person, who was against me and in control of me. The Head Teacher said that this man was being mean to me. This director asked the Head Teacher to go get me.

The Head Teacher came back to me and took me to see the people in the meeting room. I felt as though I were facing a gauntlet. I could not see any sense to this treatment. When I walked in no introductions were made. The one director was smiling and laughing. He seemed to be laughing at me. He asked me if I were all right in a tone born of ridicule. I said that I was all right and I asked him forthrightly if he were all right. This angered him. He said that his question was usual. I said that it was customary to be introduced to someone before conducting business. I said that it was unusual to be laughed at and that it had been odd to have had to sit in the little room. He was visibly very angry with me. I was extremely angry with them and I knew that I could not comment on much of anything that I had overheard. I did mention the KNX job and the reasons why I could not do the job. This infuriated the one director even more. I stood in silence for a minute. I was waiting for someone to say something. No one spoke and so I asked if more were required of me. I was told that I could leave.

I was taken to the front of the office and I was asked to wait. There was some confusion as to what paperwork to bring to me. It became obvious that there were two contracts for different amounts of money. A female staff member started to bring me one contract and was asked to stop part way towards me. She was told to bring me another contract. This female, staff member seemed flustered, confused, and upset at this. The Head Teacher asked loudly if I were not allowed to do the better job then. The answer was that I was not allowed to do the better job right away. I was brought a contract for two hundred and fifty thousand yen per month (US$2,500/month). This confused me because I had already signed such a contract. I questioned the need to sign another contract. The secretary told me just to sign it. I signed it. The Head Teacher was upset and asked the board of directors something about why I was not being hired for the better job again. The answer came that I had to do what had been decided in the meeting. The Head Teacher also asked what the purpose of another contract with a larger amount of money with my name on it was. The Head Teacher was exasperated and furious with the board of directors. I knew that Interac was not a good company and so I knew that I would not stay with them for very long.

I went to the Hiroshima office for job orientation. I overheard a secretary/manager there tell a teacher that I was supposed to be given a Tokyo position that would pay me seven hundred and fifty thousand yen per month (US$7,500/month). The only catch was that I had to go to bed with a Japanese women before I was hired for it and that Jon Burzynski was running some kind of scam against me so that I could not go out with anyone. This Jon Burzynski wanted the job that was meant for me.

It turned out that Jon Burzynski was telling everyone that he would help women to go out with me. I worked every week night until late. I was never home early. The company was involved in a scam against me. It also came to light later that they were bugging my apartment electronically and taping my conversations. They said that there was some kind of problem concerning me and that they were trying to fix it.

Interac did another mean thing to me. My monthly travel expenses totalled fifty thousand yen or more (US$500.00) and I was not allowed to submit these receipts for reimbursement until just before payday. This meant that I got behind in my cash flow. Other teachers were allowed to submit these receipts any time that they wanted to.

One day, I found a brochure, that I had been given by Interac before I had left for Japan. A substantial housing allowance and a substantial reimbursement on the plane fare to Japan was promised in this brochure. I mentioned this and I was told that I was right about my find, but I was asked to be quiet about it or I would be dismissed from the company's employ.

I quit Interac about three months into my contract. I went to work for a private prep school, where I taught mostly children, who tapped into an entirely new market for the prep school. Interac dogged after me. Jon Burzynski was hired years later to do the job that I was supposed to have been given. It was rumoured that Jon Burzynski was not paid as much money for this position as I would have been. Interac had just wanted my ideas for as little money as possible.

The prep school owner encouraged me to go out with one of the women in the family. This family switched the names of the two women in the family, so that it could be denied that I was dating anyone when it suited the family to say so. This was done, so that I could not be hired by another company that had agreed not to hire me until I had dated someone. People, who threatened the family with exposing their plan to me, were given a pay-off. No one ever told me. It took me a long time to prove all this to myself, to believe it, and to digest it. Of course, my efforts to prove all this and understand it were severely hampered by my lack of understanding of Japanese, which I was in the throes of learning slowly.

The prep school owner and his supposed sister tried to convince me to marry this arm-twisting sister. They even tried to get me to move out of my apartment and to move into their house. I refused. Interac had even tried to get me evicted from my apartment after I had quit them. They could not have me evicted because I had been paying the rent and had paid the damage deposit.

My prep school owner's name was said to be Tatsuroh Himeji. His school's name in English translation was Himeji Prep School. Later other fellow teachers told me that there was another Himeji Prep School in the city of Okayama. The school, that I knew, was at least 30 miles or 50 kilometres away from where I had taught. The people, who informed me of the existence of another Himeji Prep School, told me that the prep school owner had been mean to me. I said that I knew and that there was nothing that I could do about it at that time.

When I started with the prep school, I made certain that I had two days off a week: Thursday and Saturday. I had resolved to keep Thursdays as a day off as I was teaching several private students on Saturdays. Eventually though, I was hired part-time by a company called Time T.I. Communications to teach a group of engineers at Kawasaki Steel on Thursday evenings. I started to make between three hundred fifty thousand yen and four hundred fifty thousand yen per month (US$3,500 to US$4,500 per month).

As I did not have a girlfriend, I succumbed to the pressure to date the sister of the prep school owner about three months after I started at the school. This Japanese woman was my first real girlfriend. Three months after dating this woman moderately, she pushed hard for marrying me. I told her that I needed time. I cooled down on the relationship.

One evening a week, I taught an adult class at the prep school. One of these young women, a college student, seemed to be interested in me in a romantic way. Many people started to talk about how much this young woman liked me. I decided to ask her out for coffee and I asked her for her phone number. She was my student, but I reasoned that she was of age and I was in a private school. Moreover, I also reasoned that going for coffee was the most innocuous of all activities. I did not tell her that I found her attractive nor did I tell her that I liked her. I felt that we could meet over coffee in a professional way and if she were interested in me, she would let me know.

I phoned her home three times over the space of about two weeks. She was not home the first two times. On the third time, I got her at home. She curtly refused to meet me for coffee. I gave up. She quit coming to my class and then she reported me for harassment to my school.

I started dating the school owner's sister again sporadically.

One night before my adult class, the young college student came to the school and requested to speak to me. She handed me a handwritten note in fractured English. She shook from fright and worry. The essence of the note was that there had been a misunderstanding between us and that she wanted to rejoin the class. I decided to acquiesce and allowed her back into the class. This was likely a mistake.

Within two weeks of this young woman rejoining my adult class, the school was abuzz with murmurs and whispers of how much this young woman liked me. Even my child and teenaged students were talking about this young woman liking me. I felt ill to my stomach over it. I never made any further advances on this young woman, even though she followed me home on the train two or three times. On one occasion, the school owner came to me after my adult class and offered to give me a ride to the train station. This was very unusual as I always walked. When I got to the car, I saw the young college student in the back of the car and she was looking at me with pleading, bedroom eyes. I went to get into the front seat because I did not want any contact with the young woman, but the school owner insisted that I get into the back of the car. The young woman immediately moved towards me and pressed her body next to mine and held my left arm with both her hands. I pushed her away from me straight away. She was shocked. The school owner asked me if I were okay and I said that I was. I did not speak very much on the way to the station and I did not speak to the young woman at all. On arriving at the train station after a seven-minute car ride, I exited the car as quickly as I could and was very thankful to be away from such a conniving, young woman.

Right after this college student had reported me for harassment, another, older adult student in my adult class helped me link with an English teacher at the secondary school, where she worked. This man, Vincent Robert Gross, and I became friends. I confided in him about all my troubles at the prep school and he said that he would check into my problem and help me, if he could. He was fluent in Japanese and I was still a novice.

It turned out that Vincent Robert Gross simply wanted to take advantage of me. He told everyone that he had a teaching position for me in the secondary school, where he taught. Via the phone, he tracked me everywhere I went. He stole some jobs meant for me and he went after every young lady, who liked me. He told the young women, who liked me, that he would tell me about them. He told these women that they had to give him their phone numbers and that they could not contact me directly because there was a problem in my life. He also told them that they had to go through him because he was a teacher and that gave him a high status in Japanese society. (Social status and rank are very important in Japanese society.) Furthermore, he told all these women that he had seniority over me and he could speak Japanese when I could not. He used this same strategy on all the companies that tried to contact me to hire me. Vincent Gross also used this strategy to stop me from winning prizes. Vincent Gross had been recruited to ensure that I did not go out with any women other than one from the area, in which he and I taught.

Just after having met Vincent Robert Gross, I made the acquaintance of a certain Mr. Harada, whose family owned the privately held secondary school, where Vincent Gross taught. Mr. Harada took me out for lemonade near my apartment one day. It seemed as though he was laughing at me. One of his friends chastised him for something, which I did not understand because it was said in Japanese. Mr. Harada told me that he was a French teacher at a women's community college and that he could only speak Japanese and French. I could not speak Japanese very much at all at that time and so I spoke to him in French. It turned out later that he was fluent in English. In fact, he was infinitely better at English than at French.

Mr. Harada suddenly informed me that he had been to Ottawa about a year before I had arrived in Japan. I thought this piece of information too odd to be coincidental. Mr. Harada even laughed as he imparted this information. I immediately suspected Mr. Harada of collaborating with the Mulroney federal government of Canada. I purposely asked him an odd question, that I knew would elicit a negative response and catch him off guard. I find using red herrings helpful in ferreting out the truth. I asked him if he had met and spoken to the Canadian Prime Minister. Mr. Harada gave a negative response with a certain amount of chuckling. Then, I hit him hard with a damning question. I queried as to whether or not he had spoken to someone in the Canadian government about me and my legal problems in Canada. Mr. Harada's face went completely crimson and he was speechless. He did not answer my question, but he suggested that he take me back to my place. I knew that I had caught him and I also knew that the Canadian government was dogging after me still.

A little while after this encounter with Mr. Harada, he took me to his house for coffee and he told me that he might hire me to teach French and English at the women's college, where he taught. I knew that he would never hire me. On another occasion, Mr. Harada took Vincent Gross and me to his house, where the three of us made small talk. Even though Vincent Gross and Mr. Harada spoke in Japanese part of the time, I could tell by their intonation and body posture that they wanted to hide something from me.

At some point around this time and one night at the end of my adult class at the prep school, the young, college student, who had caused me considerable grief, asked me if I had any friends in Japan. I naively answered her questions. I thought that doing so would be harmless. I told her that I had a Dutch friend named Robert Koene. She asked where he lived and I told her. (This type of question is very common in Japan and usually is for the purposes of making idle chatter.) Later I found out that she had contacted Robert Koene in order to get close to me.

It turns out that this college student went to Robert Koene's place with the belief that Robert had contacted me an had arranged for me to meet him at his place at the same time that she was there. Robert Koene was not supposed to tell me that she was going to be there, but he was just supposed to arrange a blind meeting between her and me. He did not tell me about this meeting because he wanted to get her into bed. It was widely noised about that Robert Koene had got this young student fairly inebriated on a reasonably small amount of beer and had managed to get her to take off her blouse and bra. She even allowed him to feel her breasts. It was said that she would not allow him to do any more, though. Apparently, he became angry at this and he took pictures of her topless. I overheard Robert Koene say to other people that he planned on waiting until I started dating this young student and then he would blackmail us with the threat of sending copies of the negatives to magazines.

On another occasion, Mr. Harada took me to his house and showed me a photo album, which contained pictures of one of his former girlfriends romping through a Japanese cedar forest. She was completely nude in the pictures. He gave the short commentary that Japanese women like to have sex often and anywhere. I felt this in poor taste. I think that lovemaking should be special and private and I do not think that my stance is prudish. My discomfort at seeing the pictures and my haste in shutting the photo album were very obvious and Mr. Harada was shocked at what he thought was prudery on my part. I did not see Mr. Harada again for a long time.

Some parents of my students and many of my students started talking about the fact that another one of my adult students, who was also a college student, and the prep school's word processor class teacher both liking me. On separate occasions, I saw both of these women near my apartment more than once and it must be stated that my apartment was far away from where both of these women lived: I lived about 30 kilometres or 20 miles from their town. On one occasion, I saw this other college student in front of the train station of the city, where I lived. I looked at her because I felt as though someone were staring at me and she was staring at me. I was about to say 'hello' to her when she burst into tears and started sobbing. I was too shocked and embarrassed to say anything and passed on by.

All three of these women were and probably still are extremely good-looking. I would have been overjoyed to have had any one of these three as a serious girlfriend and I would have seriously contemplated marriage in such a relationship, but I felt as though the entire situation was one of entrapment. These women did not really talk to me and often ran from me. I felt that it was prudent to leave further solicitations for dating these women up to these women. Of course, they never asked me out and, having been bitten once, I did not wish to be devoured on a second attempt to go on a date with one of those three women or anyone in their immediate, geographical area. After two years of this, I quit my job at the prep school and I cut ties with Vincent Gross, Mr. Harada, and all native English-speaking people in Japan.

Much to my dismay, Vincent Gross and Mr. Harada dogged after me. Mr Harada appeared where I was once every two or three years. I was never offered a teaching position by either of these men, but many people told me that they had a position for me.

Other schools lied and said that I was working for them and I was not under their employ at all. Some schools went as far as to hire someone with the same first name as mine, so that they could imply that I was working for them by saying that 'Stuart' was working at their school. Some institutions even wrongfully dismissed me and yet said that I was still under their employ. There were so many people running scams on me that confusion reigned supreme and many bystanders initially thought that I was of bad character.

During all of this, one American woman, one Canadian woman, one New Zealander woman, one Japanese woman, and one woman, who was both American and Japanese, all took turns insisting that they were my steady girlfriends. I never went out with any of these women except for the Japanese woman. All these women lied about my relationship behind my back and said that we had a serious relationship: they were able to stop me from getting a real date with someone I really liked. I was only friends with the Japanese woman, but she did her best to convince others around me that she was my girlfriend while she dated and bedded other men as did all these scamming women. Each of these women had their different reasons for wanting to scam on me and I am not certain that I know what that reason was in each case. Some were motivated by the promise of money if I were romantically 'incapacitated' and one wanted to make certain that I went to Canada with her as a tour guide and free hotel ticket.

I quit the prep school at the end of November 1993. In February 1994, I started teaching at a private nursery school, but they were not willing to be the guarantor for my working visa. My Kawasaki Steel class had come to an end in September 1993 and I had only had my private students' monthly fees for income. I knew that I had only from the end of November 1993 to July 1994 to find a new guarantor for a new visa. Good news came in March 1994 when Time T.I. Communications asked me on full-time at Kawasaki Steel.

My job at Kawasaki Steel was great and entailed teaching seventy engineers English every week. I taught Monday to Thursday morning from 7:30 to 9:30 and Monday to Thursday evening from 6:30 to 8:00. Coupled with my nursery school job and other work on the side, I did very well financially for three years. I was making between 500,000 and 600,000 yen per month (US$5,000 to US$6,000 per month).

About January 1996, my world came crashing down along with my job. The Head Foreign Teacher at Time T.I. Communications' Osaka office phoned me and informed me that my contractual salary amount would be for half its previous sum and that the number of required of hours of instruction per week would be the same. He also said that my contract length would be reduced to six months. He further told me that I would be given a false contract to secure my twelve-month visa. I thought about this deal for about three days and then I phoned the Head Teacher and told him that I would quit at the end of my current contract. I was without a guarantor for my visa once again. My Kawasaki Steel classes ended in April 1996. I had less than four months to find a new guarantor and many of my bridges were burned in the local area.

I found a Japanese man, who had become a friend to all my Japanese friends and who said was interested in helping me. This man, Mr. Tohru Satano, was the cook and supervisor at a Japanese-style pub. He said that the school would be mine and that he did not need any money if he could set the school up for a minimal cost. He said that he wanted me to pay back only the money, for which he might be out of pocket. I agreed to this. As it turned out, he was able to set my school up for just a monthly rental fee at prep school in Kurashiki.

Shortly after Mr. Satano and I signed our agreement, Mr. Satano reneged on a promise that he had made to all my friends and me. This deal had nothing to do with my school. My friends washed their hands of Mr. Satano. Mr. Satano came off looking like a liar.

Mr. Satano got me into two additional private nursery schools. I was also teaching in the rented classroom in a prep school in Kurashiki, the city where I lived. After about two years of running this school, I was bringing in an annual, gross income of 1,200,000 yen (US$120,000) or more. Expenses were low, but I was not paid fairly. Mr. Satano started pocketing most of the cash. This meant that I had to pocket cash from my own school: this was not wrong. Mr. Satano started telling everyone that the school was his and started accusing me of embezzlement. The Japanese National Police were on my side. Mr. Satano even became two to three months behind in the rent payment for my classroom. The owner of the prep school, where I was renting my classroom, questioned me on this and I said that Mr. Satano was not an honest man. I told this man that there was enough money to pay the rent for three months every month and this was true. The Prep school owner and I became friends.

It turned out that Mr. Satano had resolved not to pay me properly until I had bedded a woman. This was impossible for me as too many people were stopping me from having any contact with the opposite sex. The final thread left to any trust that I could have had for Mr. Satano was severed when I caught him stealing cash from the till of the pub, where he worked. Unfortunately, I was under contract with Mr. Satano and so I could not say anything about Mr. Satano's crime: he would have dismissed me forthwith. I bided my time.

Kozakura (Little Cherry Blossom) Nursery School, the first nursery school at which I had started working, treated me quite nicely in the beginning and the Head Mistress liked me a lot, although it seemed obvious that this school wanted me full-time and that I had to date one of their teachers before I was hired for this position. This situation did not seem to be the fault of this nursery school entirely. I was quite certain that Vincent Gross and Mr. Harada were behind the sabotaging of my chances at this nursery school. It is also interesting to note that the code of Japanese society dictates that a company is not allowed to keep an employee on part-time employment indefinitely: a Japanese company is expected to hire a person full-time after about two or three years of part-time employment. The expectation within Japanese society is that society MUST provide for the wellbeing of its members.

The biggest problem, that I faced, was that no one questioned what Vincent Gross and Mr. Harada were doing. No one verified that these two men were doing something for me or not doing anything for me. The Japanese system relies on honesty and it is unthinkable to the Japanese mind that anyone would lie, especially a Japanese person. Moreover, the guidelines of dealing with problems in Japanese society dictate that only one person or one group of directly affiliated people discuss a problem with the victim. No one else is supposed to even mention to the victim the name of the person or group of people, who are providing help. Herein lay the crux of my real problem. Vincent Gross and Mr. Harada were telling everyone that they were talking to me and helping me, but they were not communicating anything to me. They were bugging my apartment electronically without my knowledge, of course, and they were using that information to make it seem as though they were in contact with me. Furthermore, these two men made different promises to different schools, companies, and people.

As a brief aside here, there was another man, who stopped me from getting dates with women. He was an English teacher for and English language school, which was called GEOS. This English teacher's name was Stuart Hughes. He caused me no end of trouble, too. He was held in disregard by nearly every Japanese person, with whom I came in contact. I believe that he spied on me for Vincent Gross. He came on the scene and moved on to another city in Japan before Mr. Satano came into my life. The players against me were great in number. I believe that many companies and that the federal government of Canada had payoff-type bounty on my head to get me to return to Canada or to get me to commit suicide.

One important point needs to be made here. If I found my own lady friend, such a liaison did not count toward securing a great job, a promotion, a higher wage, or compensation from those, who had wronged me. Only the two men, who were supposedly helping me, were allowed to make the link between my prospective dates and me. Of Course, these two men, Mr. Harada and Vincent Gross, were not helping me an any new, prospective dates for me were told to wait until the first ones in line had had their chance with me. Any of the women, whom I managed to date, were hounded until they quit dating me. Moreover, if I had approached these two men for help, they would have told me that they could not find anything wrong in my life or they would have kept asking me for more time to look into my situation or sort it out as a delay tactic.

I went to Japan with an outstanding student loan. I was not able to pay this debt off before I left Canada because I had been subjected to extortion during my entire adult life in Canada and my wage had remained well below the poverty level. Further to this, I had overheard my personnel manager (human resources manager) at Eaton's, Sharon Turton, say that Eaton's would have paid for my education, if I had studied for and procured a Masters in Business Administration. This underhanded dealing with me meant that Eaton's was actually liable for my education expenses regardless of what I had studied. What is more, a degree in French is very useful in Canada, which is a bilingual country. Add to this that Eaton's was a national company.

In 1994, Kim Campbell, who had stepped in as Prime Minister of Canada after Brian Mulroney had resigned due to his unpopularity, lost the federal election. She even lost her own seat in parliament because she lost her riding. It was reported in the newspapers that Kim Campbell had spoken out against Catholics in Canada and she had derided the Liberal Party leader, Jean Chretien, for speaking out of the side of his mouth, a physical problem that everyone knew had been caused by a stroke. Jean Chretien took over as Prime Minister in January 1995. I had always respected Jean Chretien as he had been a household name in Canadian politics for a quarter of a century or more. As the United Nations had not rushed to help me, I decided to appeal to the federal, Canadian government again. The Progressive Conservative government, to which Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell had belonged, had been crushed and had won only two seats in parliament. The Progressive Conservative government lost its long-time run as a major political party in Canada and it dissolved. In lieu of any other forthcoming help, I chose this seemingly auspicious timing to appeal to Jean Chretien's Liberal government.

Admittedly, I filed my appeal with the new Liberal government in Canada a little too soon, but it was received. I became impatient at not having been sent a response to my letter from the new federal minister of justice and so I phoned the Canadian embassy in Tokyo. The man at the embassy laughed at me and said that Canadian policy would not change towards me. The said that there would be no difference between the way one Canadian political party dealt with and the way another chose to deal with me. I was shocked, but not unduly surprised. This man at the embassy actually mocked me. I told him that the Canadian government would be in trouble, if what he said were true. My statement seemed to shock him.

My response did come, but it was not good. The letter stated that the Canadian government did not represent individual Canadian citizens in legal matters and an address and phone number for an office providing financial assistance for legal aid in my province of British Columbia were given. While I was in Canada, I had phoned and asked this very same office for help three times and had been refused. The letter, that I got from the federal minister of justice, could have easily fit on one page, but the Federal Minister of Justice (Injustice?), Alan Rock, had purposely started the letter far enough down on the first page so as to necessitate a second page. This meant that his signature was not on page one, where his lie about the Canadian government not getting involved with an individual Canadian citizen's legal problems was written. This did not help the (Not So Honourable) Minister to dodge his liability in the matter, though. The paper and the colour of the paper were the same for both pages and so were the watermarks : the paper of both pages of the letter was the same.

One year after having started my very loose partnership with Mr. Satano, I received a legal document, which was written in Japanese. I could not read it and so I asked Mr. Satano for help in reading it. The essence was that the federal, Canadian government was taking legal action against me to collect the federal portion of my student loan. I went with Mr. Satano to the courthouse in Kurashiki and talked with a Japanese judge. A Japanese lawyer, who was representing the federal, Canadian government and who had a very good knowledge of English, wrote me a threatening letter in English. I did not have enough money to pay my loan off in full. In fact, I was going hungry some of the time at this point. My poor wage from Mr. Satano had drained all my savings. In dispair, I appealed to the American embassy in Tokyo. I wrote to then Ambassador Thomas Foley. I wrote to him about my problems in Canada, my problems in Japan, and my student loan problems. I also sent him a copy of the letter, that I had received in January 1995 from the Canadian Federal Minister of Justice. It turns out that copies of both my appeal to the American Ambassador and my response from the Canadian Federal Minister of Justice were passed on to all those, who care about my plight: copies of these two letters were sent to several G-7 countries. Needless to say, the Canadian government dropped its case against me because I did not have sufficient funds to cover full or partial payment. I did not find this out right away and Mr. Satano made certain that everyone knew about my 'indebtedness' to the federal, Canadian government.

As I previously stated, Mr. Satano did the groundwork to get me into two additional nursery schools. I had relinquished the right to receive my pay directly from Kozakura Nursery School as I wanted my visa paperwork to appear as tidy as possible: of course, this proved to be a serious mistake on my part. The two additional nursery schools also paid Mr. Satano directly. One of these schools was called Katashima Nursery School and its owner's name was Mr. Tanaka. He and his wife ran the nursery school. Mr. Tanaka ran the financial end of the school and his wife was the head teacher. In the beginning, Mr. Tanaka seemed quite gruff to me, but, all in all, he appeeared to be a nice man. He and his wife both commented on how they thought that Mr. Satano was an odd man. Mr. Tanaka even told me that Mr. Satano had worked at a bank and that Mr. Satano and Mr. Satano's superior had been dismissed from the bank amid suspicion of embezzlement. Mr. Tanaka told me that that much had been in the newspaper a few years before. The two men's names had even been printed. Mr. Satano's wife had divorced him and, according to Mr. Tanaka, the divorce was over Mr. Satano's dismissal from the bank. I met Mr. Satano's former superior from the bank on several occasions and, on two or three of these times, I overheard the former superior ask Mr. Satano what Mr. Satano had done at the bank. Mr. Satano dodged the question, but he admitted to me in private that he had done something wrong at the bank and that what he had done had precipitated his dismissal from the bank.

Mr. Tanaka of Katahima Nursery School treated me very nicely. He often took me out for dinner and for drinks on his treat. He and his wife treated me with respect. All the teachers at that nursery school treated me well, too. The children tried hard to speak English and I did my best to make every lesson interesting through songs, actions, games, and jokes. I had a unique style and all my students really seemed to enjoy my lessons.

I had been teaching at Katashima Nursery School for about one year or one year and a half when Mr. Tanaka became eager to know about my personal life. For the first year while I was teaching at Katashima Nursery School, Mr. Satano often drove me to the nursery school and then he would visit with Mr. Tanaka for an hour or more. Sometimes, Mr. Satano would still be there two hours later and would take me back home. I went to this nursery school only once a week. I talked to Mr. Tanaka in the office for ten to twenty minutes before going to the classroom. We talked over a cup of tea or coffee. One such time, Mr. Tanaka asked me if I had a girlfriend and whether or not I liked Japanese women. I thought that these questions were far too personal. I said that I did not have a girlfriend at that time, but that I had had one. He then stated that I must be having sex with someone and asked for confirmation if this were so. I told him that that information was none of his business. This made him angry and he said that it was a usual question. Of course, I knew that this was not so even in Japanese society, but I did not know what to say. I told him that it really was not his business and told him that I had not recently had sex. I was shocked. I wanted to leave the nursery school and never go back. He asked me if I were homosexual and told me if I were, he did not want me around children. I was furious with him inside. I told him that I was most definitely not homosexual. I still am not homosexual, but I do not hate homosexuals. Mr. Tamaka asked me why I had not had sex recently. I told him not to worry about it. He pressed for an answer and asked whether or not I had contracted a sexually transmitted disease. I said that I did not have any diseases. He pressed me again for a reason for not having had sex for a while and so I relented and told him that I was being stopped from getting a girlfriend by several people. He and his wife did not believe me and told me that such a scenario was impossible. Mr. Tanaka called me a liar. From that day on, Mr. Tanaka started to belittle me. He did so even in front of others. He called me a strange foreigner or a stupid foreigner. He even made statements about my lack of ability for sexual conquests.

Mr. Tanaka began to tell me from time to time that non-Japanese people were inferior to Japanese people. At this time, it also became obvious that Mr. Tanaka was being unfaithful to his wife. Mr. Tanaka even told me that he had paid fifty thousand yen (US$500) for sex and sexual favours. It seemed as though he was not lying to me about this, but even if he had been lying, it was clear that he did not respect his wife. Mr. Tanaka even belittled me with this scenario by telling me that I could not get anyone into bed because I did not have enough money. Mr. Tanaka even used this line to belittle me infront of other people. I informed Mr. Tanaka that he was engaged in prostitution. He adamantly denied that his actions resembled prostitution in any way. Mr. Tanaka and I agreed to disagree. He still respected my teaching ability, though. Mr. Tanaka even told me that I was talented as a teacher and yet strange in other ways. I knew that Mr. Tanaka was far from perfect, too.

During my second year of teaching at Kawasaki Steel, I became overweight. I went from a 36-inch waist to about a 40-inch waist. I was not obese, but I was hefty. I gained weight because of the stress from my problems. My schedule did not lend itself to a routine eating pattern, as well. My most problematic meal was supper. I had to board the train by 5:40 p.m. to get to my evening class, which started at 6:30 p.m. In order to eat supper and make it to my evening class on time, I would have had to eat at about 4:00 p.m. I was rarely ever hungry at this hour and so I decided to wait until after my evening class to eat. This mean that I ate at a late hour every night from Monday to Thursday: I had evening classes only on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. My evening class ended at 8:00 p.m. and my train arrived at the Kurashiki station at about 9:00 p.m. By the time I placed my order, received it, and started eating it, the time eas 9:30 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. As the only places open at that hour near the train station were pubs, I usually had downed the equivalent of four to six bottles of beer, before my order had arrived. In the course of an evening, I usually drank between twelve and twenty beer. With the consumption of all this beer, my stomach expanded and I was able to eat copious amounts of food. Bit by bit, I gained weight. I reached a point where I was able to eat the equivalent of three to five large suppers every night. I also acquired an unquenchable thirst for beer.

I began to look at myself in the mirror and I became dissatisfied with the overweight person, whom I saw. I began to wonder how I could conquer my weight problem. One evening, I went to one of my friend'sbars. He was the bartender and cook there. I was early and so I was the only patron. My friend came up to me and told me that I had gained a lot of weight and that it was not good. I agreed with him and told him that I had been thinking about that very problem. He asked me what I was going to do about my weight problem. I thought for a few seconds and then I told him that I had a plan. He asked what it was and I said that, from Sunday to Thursday, I would generally drink only three beer a day. I said that I would allow myself to splurge on Fridays and Saturdays. I also said that I would cut down on my food intake by one or two dishes a night and that I would stop eating snack foods with my beer. My friend asked me if I could do that and I replied that I could and would. In addition, I told my friend that he would notice a slight difference in my weight within a week and a marked improvement after two weeks.

I did not waver from my plan, but I found that I still had a craving for alcohol after I finished my three beer even on the first night of putting my diet plan into effect. I reasoned that whisky was not fattening because of its high alcohol content and its basic ingredients. I asked my bartender friend about this and he confirmed my deduction. Little by little, I drank more and more whisky each time I drank.

After one week of dieting by my method, I lost a fair amount of weight. At the end of two weeks on my diet, I was looking a lot slimmer. My friend was surprised. I thanked him for the push and encouragement. My problem had never been a lack of exercise, for I was always walking and my job was a very active one, as well. My problem had been my calorie intake. I became that slim that my friend was actually afraid that I would get thin, but I remained healthy.

As I was under a lot of stress with my problems, I ached for a release, if help was not forthcoming and help was far off from me. I had tried to get help from the authorities in Japan with my Japanese problem, but they did not believe me. Even my own friends did not believe me. Everyone believed that Mr. Harada was helping me, but he was not and I was strongly discouraged by everyone not even to hint at my distrust of Mr. Harada. I found that association with my many friends helped alleviate a lot of my stress. I used karaoke as a release, as well. My worst moments with my stress were when I was alone. By the time I had been working for two years under Mr. Satano's sponsorship for my working visa, I had become a functional alcoholic. I had also become a strong drinker: I drank two 750-millimetre or two 26-ounce bottles of whisky a day straight. At first, I drank one shot of whisky before I left for work in the morning. Then, I increased my morning consumption of whisky by another shot gradually until I was consuming five shots of whisky before I went to work in the morning. Of course I chased this whisky with some Coca Cola and coffee before walking into my workplaces. I did this to mask my foul breath to some degree. I usually drank some beer in the eveining of every day, as well. Some days, I nearly drank as much as three bottles of whisky.

I tried to slow my drinking pace way down, but I was usuccessful at first. One day, I was determined to curb the amount of whisky that I was drinking. I decided to make myself sick on whisky by drinking and extremely large amount of it. It was New Year's break and I drank four litres (about four quarts) of whisky in about six hours. I did not become ill enough to throw up, but I felt quite nauseous, really drowsy, and very restless for three days. I succeeded in dropping my alcohol consumption greatly. I even took a three-month break from all forms of alcohol.

Many people, especially the ones against me, did not accept that I had gained control of my alcohol problem. Two outside forces created the illusion of me having imbibed. One thing that needs to be stated at this point is that I very rarely become red-faced when I drink alcohol. I become red-faced when I have an allergic reaction to something or when I get sunburnt, of course, and I get sunburnt very easily. I have a very acute allergic reaction to secondhand tobacco smoke and contact with tobacco smoke even once a week for as little as ten to fifteen minutes in a poorly ventilated area can make me violently ill and very red-faced. If this exposure to tobacco smoke is repeated on a weekly basis, my condition worsens. Mr. Tanaka of Katashima Nursery School was a very heavy smoker. A very visible, two-foot-deep cloud of cigarette smoke hung at head level in the nursery school ofice most of the time. As far as getting sunburnt in an Asian climate is concerned, my face was no exception. I walked at least ten kilometres or about six miles a day to work in warm to sweltering weather from March to November. I sometimes took the bus and this meant waiting at bus stops in the blazing sun. My face was always pink from sunburn. Of course, people accused me of having drunk. those, who really knew me, knew the truth. I had not become perfect with my control of alcohol, but I was running at between eighty-five to ninety--five percent in control. An additional outside negative force that contributed to me appearing as though I had been drinking alcohol was lack of food intake due to my impecunious (impoverished) state.

In the spring of 2001, it had become obvious to most that I was having trouble with Mr. Satano. Mr. Tanaka voiced his concern to me about my predicament. I was on edge and I shook as much from my distress as I did from hunger. I reached a point where I often skipped meals because I could not afford to buy food. The good side to this situation was that I did not have enough money to buy alcohol either. I often ate instant noodles twice a day. I became weaker by the day.

Mr. Tanaka wanted to have the same English teacher coming to his nursery school for the sake of continuity. You see, my visa ended on July 21, but the school year ended at the end of March. Both Mr. Tanaka and I knew that, if I did not stay with Mr. Satano, I would not be able to continue teaching at Mr. Tanaka's nursery school and this would likely upset the little children at the school.

I told Mr. Tanaka that I would try to find a new guarantor for my working visa and he said that he would try to help me find one, too. I was unsuccessful at finding a new guarantor, but Mr. Tanaka found me one in time. This man's name was Mr. Akazawa and he had a business relationship with the nursery school. Mr. Akazawa was to be my guarantor and Mr. Tanaka said that he would give me a loan for start-up rental costs, students' desks, tables, chairs, the whiteboard, and teaching materials. I was nervous about the size of the loan, but I believed in my ability as a teacher and salesman and I knew that I could pay off such a loan quickly. I envisioned that it would take me between one year to two years to pay off the loan.

It was some time during the finalization of the paperwork for my visa between Mr. Tanaka, Mr. Akazawa, and me that another problem surfaced. I received a very detailed form from the Hiroshima Income Tax Office, which is the regional tax office for the area, in which I lived. There is also a tax office in the city, in which I lived, but something appeared to have gone beyond the jurisdiction of that smaller office. I had obviously been referred to the larger, regional tax office for some reason. Within standard practice in Japan, the non-Japanese national usually has his or her income tax deducted by the employer or by the visa guarantor. A Japanese person always takes care of this. Mr. Satano promised me that he would make certain to pay my income tax. For two years near the end of my stint with Mr. Satano, I had received a small cardlike form to fill out and send back to the regional office in Hiroshima. On the third year running in this new way of dealing with my income tax, I received a detailed package from the regional tax office in Hiroshima. This confused me because I had to take the equivalient of a copy of my T-4 slip (the Canadian version of a statement of earnings from one's employer) to immigration every year in order to renew my visa. Mr. Satano had faithfully provided me with this document. It turned out that he had not been paying my income tax and just filling out the paperwork as if I had been paying. One day while I was in Mr. Tanaka's office at the nursery school, I received a phone call a tax officer in Hiroshima. We compared information and sorted out the problem. I delivered the goods on Mr. Satano. Mr. Tanaka and I knew that Mr. Satano was in a fair amount of trouble. Mr. Satano would be required to pay a considerable sum to the Japanese government. I told the tax officer that I was quitting my school with Mr. Satano and that I was going to start at another school and that my new guarantor would make certain that my taxes were paid. The tax officer was very understanding towards me and obviously very angry with Mr. Satano. I gave him enough information to find Mr. Satano and I was open and honest about my new situation.

Mr. Tanaka promised me that my new school would be mine and that I would be in control of my school's bank account. He told me to start paying him back as soon as I could and he said that there was no hurry. I promised to pay him something from the first month of the school's operation and increase the monthly payment as soon as I could. Mr. Tanaka said that it was not necessary to short-change myself. I told him that I felt obliged to start paying him back right away.

Three weeks before my visa expired, Mr. Tanaka informed me that HE would have financial control of the school, if I wanted his help. He asked me if I was still willing to go through with the plan to open up my school. I had no money to pack up and go back to Canada and I did not want to go back to Canada because of all my problems there. I also had no other way of procuring a working visa in that short amount of time. I had no choice but to agree to this underhanded deal.

I had told both Mr. Tanaka and Mr. Akazawa that I needed to go to immigration six weeks before my visa expired to apply for a new one. They did not listen to me. The immigration official was furious with Mr. Akazawa for waiting as long as he had.

Mr. Tanaka often told me that he was the real owner of my school, which was called 'Stuart English Language School' in translation. Mr. Tanaka loaned me the equivalent of twenty thousand dollars in American funds (two million yen). He became increasingly concerned about losing what he began to look at as his 'investment': initially, he had stated that he only wanted the principal paid back! From the start, I was completely willing and prepared to give Mr. Tanaka an added percentage to his principal as a thank-you and I even told him so. I began to get a little on edge about the loan because of Mr. Tanaka's behaviour, but I had faith in my school and my ability.

After a few months of operation, my school's gross, monthly cash intake was over 800,000 yen (US$8,000). My school was bringing in that much money even with the loss of the revenue from Kozakura Nursery School. Kozakura had decided to go with the new teacher, whom Mr. Satano had found. The loss of this revenue was about 400,000 yen per month (US$4,000). Ther were four things that were very bad with the end of my relationship with Kozakura Nursery School. Firstly, this nursery school should have hired me permanently rather than letting me go. Secondly, it should not have sided with Mr. Satano. Thirdly, its employees were telling people that I still worked there and, fourthly, its employees were spying on me.

The issue of the loan for my school became a great source of tension between Mr. Tanaka and me. The money in my school's bank account began to mount up. The unused amount of money ran over the one-million-yen mark (US$10,000). All the while, I was urging Mr. Tanaka to take back one million yen (US$10,000) as half payment towards the loan he had given me. He stubbornly refused and complained all the more bitterly over his stupidity in being so generous as to lend me so much money.

My wage remained low all this while even though Mr. Tanaka had promised me that it would go up substantially, if I were successful: I was successful and he did not make good on his promise. I was in a financial crisis as it was after my situation with Mr. Satano and my low wage made it difficult to make ends meet. After my rent and income tax deduction, I netted about one hundred and seventy-five thousand yen per month (US$1,750). Because I was struggling financially, I found it necessary to dip into the cash that I was paid directly from many of my students. I needed this money just to eat and pay my other bills. Most everyone, including the Japanese police, did not question my practice as the school bore my name and I was the only one actually working at the school: I was the secretary, too. On top of this, I was working at least a few hours every day and I put in forty hours of class time every week and thirty-five hours or more in preparation of children's materials every week. Mr. Tanaka and Mr. Akazawa were against me, though, and whatever I took was deducted from my next month's pay. This practice of theirs only served to exacerbate my financial woes.

In addition to all of this insult and injustice rained down on me by these two men, another travesty was committed against me. For the supposed privilege of having Mr. Akazawa as my guarantor, I had to pay him a monthly fee from my school's coffers. This sum began at thirty thousand yen per month (US$300) and rose to fifty thousand yen per month (US$500). Initially, Mr. Akazawa also helped me with a disign for my business cards and he became the guarantor for my apartment. After these things were off the agenda, Mr. Akazawa was obligation-free except for Mr. Tanaka's complaining.

Even before I started taking cash from what I received directly from some of my students, Mr. Tanaka was taking sizeable sums from the cash that he obliged me to take to him. I have my doubts that he actually applied some if any of these amounts against my loan to him. Even while he did this, he did not fail to remind me of what I owed him. With Mr. Akazawa's help, I was finally able to convince Mr. Tanaka to take one million yen (US$10,000) out of my shcool's account and apply towards my loan from him. However, when I stated in front of Mr. Akazawa that I had told Mr. Tanaka to do just that one several occasions, Mr. Tanaka lied and denied that I had said so. Mr. Tanaka's wife even backed her husband up, of course. When Mr. Tanaka asked me what should be done with the rest of the school bank account balance, I suggested that we split it three ways: I wanted a buffer amount of money, so that I would not always have a shortfall of cash. Mr. Tanaka refused me this: he said that I did not deserve it. I was in utter shock at the monster that Mr. Tanaka truly was. The original plan, that was Mr. Tanaka's brainchild, was that Mr. Akazawa, Mr. Tanaka, and I should split any profit made from MY school evenly three ways. This was never done.

There is one other cruel thing that Mr. Satano did to me and it was repeated by Mr. Tanaka. In about the spring of 1998, I sent two American disc jockeys something of musical value. (For the purposes of protecting these two disc jockeys, their radio station, and my future chances with their radio station, I wish to be vague with the details of information.) These two men liked what I had done and decided that they wanted to hire me to work for them part-time while I lived in Japan. The annual wage for this job was substantial. I found out about this through the proverbial grapevine and I also discovered that Mr. Satano wanted to be paid all this money first and then he would mete out to me my take from this excellent career opportunity and he would keep his percentage. These two disc jockeys did not want to through a middle man in this way, of course. When Mr. Tanaka took over the reins of my teaching career, he, too, wanted a percentage of this money! He wanted fifty percent. Again, this was not acceptable to the two disc jockeys, who were contacted by Mr. Harada and promised by him that I could do their part-time job once he had hired me as an English and French teacher. Mr. Harada never once spoke to me about any of this. The disc jockeys did nothing wrong in all this, but just about everyone else in my immediate environs did.

In all fairness, it must be stated that Mr. Akazawa battled with Mr. Tanaka over allowing me to do this radio job. Mr. Akazawa also fought with Mr. Tanaka over raising my wage. Mr. Tanaka was obstinate and refused to give in. Mr. Akazawa only once of twice admitted to me that Mr. Tanaka was being mean to me, but he did not elaborate on the point. In Mr. Tanaka's presence, Mr. Akazawa always sided with Mr. Tanaka. At times, I thought that Mr. Akazawa was actually afraid of Mr. Tanaka.

In about the spring of 2002, Mr. Tanaka announced to me that Mr. Akazawa and he were going to quit any dealings with my school and my working visa. Mr. Tanaka told me that he would find someone to take over being the guarantor for my working visa as I had exhausted all of my such possibilities. Mr. Tanaka told me that Mr. Akazawa and he were tired of me and all the PROBLEMS with my school. It turned out that a private nursery school owner is not allowed to own another business or similar business other than another nursery school under Japanese law. Mr. Tanaka was concealing the ownership of my school under the names of two other people, Mr. Akazawa's and mine. Mr. Tanaka was poised to make a profit and was actually skimming money off the top of my school's revenue. The laws governing the owners of private nursery schools seem to be tied in part to the policy that the Japanese government has of paying out a monthly subsidy for each child in attendance at nursery schools. These laws also seem to be tied to the fact that a nursery school owner has a captivated market for any other program educational or otherwise: if the owner of a nursery school owned a private school at which a monthly fee had to be paid by the parents, it would be a conflict of interest at the partial expense of the Japanese government and a possible betrayal to the parents of the nursery school students.

By about May or mid-June of 2002, Mr. Tanaka informed me that his insurance salesman, Mr. Oka, whom I had met before, was going to be my new guarantor. There was some talk of Mr. Oka finding another man to help him with my school. This other man was eventually found and quickly. He was Mr. Oka's friend and he was about to quit his job. He was in his fifties and this made the scenario of him leaving his company before retirement a little odd by Japanese standards. In fact, Mr. Oka had left the same company years before. This was also strange as it is very unusual for any person to LEAVE the employ of a Japanese company. Such an early departure from the employment of a reasonably sized company usually meant that the employee had done something very wrong. This friend of Mr. Oka's, Mr. Morinaga, was a land owner and had a substantial income from rent payments.

This was the beginning of the last phase of my first stay in Japan. It was a type of death.