![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7161\/6502990845_139eb40db5_z.jpg?resize=426%2C640\" "\\"Aonghas")
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As a foreigner living in Japan, reading Aonghas Crowe\u2019s novels can be like receiving an understanding pat on the back. Like many of us, Crowe\u2019s plans to leave Japan and head back home were derailed. Sound familiar? Nineteen years on, his wealth of experience living here as an ex-pat has given him plenty to write about. Set in none other than Fukuoka, his two novels, No. 6 (High Times and Hard Time in Japan) and A Woman\u2019s Nails explore the complexities of a foreigner\u2019s life in Japan. Ranging from failed quests for love with Japanese women, alcohol and substance abuse, the Japanese judicial system, friendships, family, and the daily perplexities of life in this country, you\u2019re sure to relate in some way to the protagonist. In between bouts of writing, Crowe also dabbles in teaching at universities, translating essays by Haruki Murakami, and is currently compiling an atlas of Japanese dialects. Fascinating! In our interview, Crowe details his thoughts on life in Japan and where you can grab a copy of his novels. Keep on reading!<\/p>\n
Tell us about your life before Japan.<\/strong> Why did you make the move to Japan and what\u2019s kept you here?<\/strong> You\u2019ve written two novels whilst in Japan. Tell us about those.<\/strong> Was there anything in particular that inspired you to write the novels?<\/strong> How much of your stories reflect your own experiences in Japan?<\/strong> Can you share any specific events that are written from firsthand experience?<\/strong> In your opinion, what is one of the unique, positive experiences and what\u2019s one struggle that foreigners living in Japan may face?<\/strong> As for a positive experience, I\u2019ve been married twice, and the idea of family here to me is really quite nice. Once you\u2019re family, people will go out of their way to do things for you, to help you. I\u2019ve been so impressed by this. I\u2019m the 11th child of 13, and in my family, we\u2019re all very friendly but everybody is their own little island. Nobody really goes out their way to help each other. But now, I\u2019ve experienced two families, two samples so to speak, and they\u2019ve really been there for me when I wasn\u2019t for them. So much so, I almost feel like an asshole. That has been very positive. I\u2019ve heard a lot of negative experiences with Japanese families, but there\u2019s give and take. My experience has been very, very positive. My Japanese family is closer to me than my American family.<\/p>\n Tell me one unique thing you love about Fukuoka.<\/strong> What are you reading right now and which authors have influenced your writing career?<\/strong> What are some of your favorite books and why?<\/strong> What are your other interests or hobbies apart from writing?<\/strong> What\u2019s in store for the future?<\/strong> Do you want to move back to America?<\/strong> Visit Aonghas Crowe\u2019s homepage at http:\/\/www.aonghascrowe.com\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nI was born in Los Angeles and when I was ten my father was transferred to Oregon. At university I majored in Bio-chemistry and was thinking of becoming a medical doctor. I was thinking of transferring to graduate school and doing four years of medical school but the odds that I would be able to pay for it were slim and none. So I decided to look for other avenues. I thought about doing international business at a graduate school in Arizona but they wanted all their students to have international experience first. So, I was in between the two, debating whether or not I should go to medical school or do something else. In the end, I decided to do something else.<\/p>\n
\nI ended up sending my resume to all kinds of companies in different countries; banks in Saudi Arabia, McDonald\u2019s in Germany. I just wanted to leave the States at the time and try something new. The first to reply was a small English school in Kitakyushu.\u00a0At that time, 19 years ago, Japan was very strong. Not like it is now. It was in the news all the time. Japanese companies were buying up American companies, pretty much the way China is today. I had also lived in Germany as a high school student so I had the European experience but I also wanted to get some Asian experience as well. So, when opportunity knocked I opened the door. I only wanted to be in Japan for two years\u2026so, I guess you can say I got derailed. I had a terrible first year. I had an awful second year. The third year was so so. Then in the fourth year I had an opportunity to return to the States and work. But, by that time, I was enjoying Fukuoka so much. I guess I had settled too and there was still a lot I wanted to continue to learn. So I spent my first year in Kitakyushu. Then when my contract was up, I moved to Fukuoka and I\u2019ve been here ever since 1993, teaching, writing and translating.<\/p>\n
\nMy wife has always been poking: \u201cWhen are you going to finish?\u201d, \u201cAre you done?\u201d This pressure, especially at the beginning, was very helpful. Inertia is important. Once you get moving, then there\u2019s no stopping. I started No. 6 (High Times and Hard Time in Japan) three and half years ago and finished it last summer. I\u2019ve been working on A Woman\u2019s Nails on and off for far longer. With A Woman\u2019s Nails, originally it was just a collection of letters I was writing to friends back home\u2026back in the days with letters, envelopes and quaint little pieces of paper we called \u2018stamps\u2019. So I had all these short stories of my experiences with Japanese women, good and bad. I took those letters, and I tried to put them together into some kind of a novel. What kills me though is that Nails is selling much better than No. 6. To me No. 6 is a faster read, has more substance to it and deals with a lot of themes. For example, there are problems with Japan\u2019s judicial system, the issue of drug abuse, the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, friendship, divorce, relationships between men and women, and relationships between family members. Nails is different. Some passages of Nails are much better written but I meant No. 6 to be a page-turner. Nails is about trying to find love and failing. Japanese women will fall really in love with you. Japanese girls watch too many movies and convince themselves that this stuff is true. So it explores the different kinds of relationships between men and women. Anyways, they\u2019re very different books.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m often inspired by my own experiences. Every once in a while, I\u2019ll be writing something and then I get this inspiration that says, \u2018this would be a good story\u2019. So it\u2019s just a matter of getting it down on paper. If you have to think deeply about creating a story, it\u2019s not going to happen. It\u2019s more like bing! You have this idea. Now, how am I going to put this idea into a story?<\/p>\n
\nWell, I don\u2019t have that much imagine\u2026 so… there\u2019s a lot of truth. There are a lot of composite characters. There are a lot of friends that are in these stories.<\/p>\n
\nI don\u2019t want the police knocking on my door\u2026so\u2026I\u2019ve got a lot of shady friends [smiles]. I\u2019ve been here so long that I\u2019ll hear things about the \u2018Japanese outcasts\u2019, for example. I hear these stories and these are things that you\u2019re not supposed to talk about, but I\u2019ve heard stories about discrimination. The police included, seem to feel justified against these people, these \u2018outcasts\u2019. There is a prejudice against foreigners as well, especially in the judicial system. It is so stacked against the defendant, unless you\u2019re someone like Ichiro Ozawa, the politician. Nobody\u2019s going to put him in jail for 30 days.<\/p>\n
\nThere is a lot of unthinking behavior in Japan. The education system doesn\u2019t require critical thinking. During the \u2018lost decades\u2019, the \u2018lost\u2019 twenty years, the economy didn\u2019t grow. Unemployment was high. People struggled. A lot of things that the Japanese thought were uniquely Japan, such as lifelong employment, all of these things, started to crumble in the 1990s. Not much has changed since I came to Japan. The people who are at the bottom rungs of society here are worse off than they were 20 years ago. Unemployment for high school graduates is increasing, one third of the country are casual workers. And yet, the LDP has been in power for most of the time. Now the Democratic Party is in power but they\u2019ll probably lose the next election. So we\u2019ll go back to the LDP which is going to allow these problems to fester and people are so passive here, again, because of the education, that there aren\u2019t revolutions. There aren\u2019t people demonstrating like in Egypt and Tunisia and so on. I can\u2019t understand it. Only one year of Obama, and you have nut jobs demonstrating and saying that they need a revolution in America. Only after one year. Twenty years in Japan and still nobody is moving. I have been here for 19 years, and there are still a lot of things that make me shake my head and ask, \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve lived in Daimyo since 1997. The bartenders, restaurateurs are all very friendly. It feels like a real neighborhood. It\u2019s a fun place. The place underneath my apartment in the 70s and 80s used to be a \u2018No pants\u2019 coffee shop. [Insert imagination here]. That, and the food in Fukuoka is excellent and cheap!<\/p>\n
\nKurt Vonnegut\u2019s latest collection of short stories, Look at the Birdie. He takes dark subjects and makes them funny. It\u2019s black humor. He takes history and makes it interesting. It\u2019s not dry. He\u2019s been called \u201ca gateway drug to other authors\u201d. Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez is another one of my favorites. He writes in Spanish, of course. I\u2019m reading his Memoria de la mis putas tristes (Memories of My Melancholy Whores). And, I\u2019m also reading David Sedaris\u2019s When You are Engulfed in Flames. He\u2019s hilarious! I tend to read half a dozen books at once.<\/p>\n
\nBreakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. Just read it! It\u2019s very American. Love in the Time of Cholera by Garcia Marquez. The short stories of Sedaris. The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger. You read his books and you want to be Holden Caulfield\u2019s friend. Anything by Philip Roth. Alex Kerr\u2019s books on Japan are highly recommended.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m currently translating essays by Haruki Murakami on my homepage (http:\/\/www.aonghascrowe.com\/). I started six weeks ago. I\u2019m like a bird picking the bugs off the big rhinoceros. I\u2019m also into photography, traveling and studying linguistics. I\u2019ve been working on An Atlas of Japanese Dialects too which is also on my homepage. It stemmed from a curiosity I had when I was teaching at university and my students were from places all over Japan. What\u2019s interesting is that in other languages, you might have slang changing from place to place, but in Japan, the grammar changes. Some of these bens (dialects) are dying which is sad. I guess you could call me an etymologer.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019d like to find an agent this year. I want to eventually dial down the teaching and focus on the writing. My son is only nine months old but I\u2019d like him to have some experience in other countries.<\/p>\n
\nI do want my son to go to an American university but as for living there permanently \u2026 Geez, there are the guns, rednecks, Republicans, the food is terrible and the people lead spiritually and physically unhealthy lives. Maybe, France or Germany. We\u2019re leaning towards Europe.<\/p>\n![\"19173\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fukuoka-now.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/191731.jpg?resize=200%2C162\" "\\"19173\\"")
<\/a><\/div>\nCheck out his books on Amazon<\/strong><\/a>, soon to be available on iBooks.<\/div>\n