The absent-minded academic (Japan)

This story came, during my undergraduate days, from Satoshi who’s now world-famous as a children’s book illustrator.  (Google him if you’re interested, under Satoshi Kitamura.)

Before Satoshi’s paternal uncle got married and set up home on his own, he lived with his older brother and sister-in-law, which is fairly standard Oriental practice.  

There were already early indications of his absent-minded-professor leanings when he’d leave the house on a rainy day with an umbrella and fail to return with it — his sister-in-law was constantly having to buy a new one.  Then, he went through a phase of leaving the house without one and coming back with one — for a while, the sister-in-law had enough to open a shop!

After he joined Hiroshima University, he was one day walking across the campus green (surrounded on all sides by university departmental blocks) when he suddenly stopped a student walking nearby and asked, “Did you see where I've just come from?”  The student: “Yes, sir, you've just come from the canteen block.”  Satoshi’s uncle: “Ah, so I’ve had my lunch then.”  (Couldn’t resist a language play here: without the comma, it’d be the Japanese “ah so” [= sort of “oh yes?” in English].  In speech, one wouldn’t hear punctuation marks, so it’d work in the original and the translation version.)

After he got married and set up family, he was driving home one evening when, somewhere in the residential estate where he lived, he suddenly couldn't recall what number his house was.  A teenager was walking on the pavement, so he pulled up alongside her, wound down his passenger window, and said, “Good evening.  My name’s Kitamura.  I’m a professor at the University of Hiroshima.  I live around here but I’ve forgotten what my house number is.  Might you know?”  The girl said, “Yes, you live at No.xx.”  Satoshi’s uncle said, “Ah, you know me then?”  The girl said, “Yes, I’m your daughter.”

(Japan, 1960s–1970s)

(If you think I’ve made up the above, read my Professor Angus Charles Graham stories in The absent-minded professor:  

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/11/absent-minded-professor.html)

Professor Cold Feet (London / Japan)

(This blog is inspired by Valerio, professor of mathematics in New Orleans.  I'd commented on a photo of his, taken at his wife Natalie's exhibition, in which he was sporting a bow tie, saying he looked so smart.  His response was that the tie was crooked and the shirt probably had a few holes somewhere.)

As an undergraduate student, I used to go and do my prepping in the Japan Reading Room because it was quieter, and I could spread out my notes and have all the reference books to myself.  

One day, I found a chap in there — in sandals, sans socks, in spite of the fact that it was early spring.  He turned out to be a Leeds University Ph.D. student of Buddhist history who was down in London to use our library because we had the best Oriental collection.  

After seeing him a few more times, I plucked up courage to ask him if he didn’t feel cold, going about without socks.  His answer was, “Oh no, I even go sockless in winter!”  So I gave him the nickname of Cold Feet.

Fast forward six or seven years and I was back at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) as staff working on two Chinese computer research projects.  

One day, when the lift that bore me arrived on the third floor, the first sight that greeted me as the doors opened were two sandal-clad, sockless feet in front of the Japanese Department notice board.  I instinctively cried out, “Cold Feet!”  The body that went with the feet turned round immediately, and it was indeed the Leeds University Buddhist history student from those earlier days.  He recognised his moniker!

He told me that, after he graduated from Leeds, he got a job in a Japanese university.  A few years later, they offered him a professorship.  

His response was: he would accept it only on the condition that they allowed him to continue going around in sandals, minus socks.  He told them he was even prepared to wear a jacket and put on a tie for the above-table façade at meetings, but there was no way he was going to confine his feet in shoes and socks.  Not even for a professorship.

(London 1978/9 and 1986/7)

At the Lost Property Office (London)

Received a printed post card from the Lost Property Office on Baker Street (world famous for Sherlock Holmes), telling me they might have something that belonged to me.  Funny, I didn’t remember losing anything.

I duly went along and this is the conversation (politely conducted throughout) that ensued:

Me:  Hi.  You’ve sent me a post card saying you have an item that belongs to me.

LPO:  What have you lost?

Me:  I don’t know.  I didn’t know I’d lost anything until I got this card from you.

LPO:  We can’t hand over the item unless you can tell us what it is.

Me:  But, like I said, I didn’t know I’d lost anything until I received this notification from you, so I can’t tell you what I don’t know I might’ve lost.

LPO:  But we can’t just give it to you.  We need you to identify it.

Me:  Well, I can’t identify something I never knew I’d lost.

LPO:  (Looking at her records and trying to be helpful)  Maybe you can tell us roughly what category it might be.

Me:  I can’t.  I have absolutely no idea what it might be.

LPO:  (Trying to get rid of the item)  OK.  Did you lose, perhaps say, a bag?

Me:  No, not to my knowledge.

LPO:  A black bag??

Me:  I have a black bag at home which I don’t use.  I use this blue rucksack.  What makes you think it’s mine anyway?  How did you come to be writing to me about it?

LPO:  Because your name and address are inside, on a gas bill.

Me:  (Seriously worried now)  I’ve lost a gas bill and I didn’t even know about it?!?  Can you show me the gas bill.  I can’t believe I’ve lost a gas bill without knowing it.

LPO:  (Looking in the bag.)  Ah, I see that it’s not your gas bill, but your name and address are hand-written on the gas bill.

Me:  This is even more worrying now.  Whose gas bill is it?  Why would my name and address be on it?  Where did you find the bag anyway?

LPO:  It was found on the Tube.

Me:  I don’t use the Tube.

LPO:  Can you tell us what might be in the bag, just to identify the contents?

Me:  I don’t know.  I’m a teacher, so I’d normally carry books, dictionaries and students’ homework in my bag.

LPO:  Aha!  Now we’re getting somewhere.  What kind of books?

Me:  I’m a Chinese teacher, so it’d be Chinese books.

LPO:  Japanese?

Me:  Well, I do know some Japanese, but I wouldn’t be carrying a Japanese book around.

LPO:  (Went off to consult her line manager, maybe to see if she could let me off on a linguistic technicality here.  Japanese, Chinese — they’re all the same, aren’t they??)

(Line Manager then entered the fray.)

LM:  Can you tell us why you’ve got men’s clothing in your bag?

This is getting more and more bizarre!!

Me:  I have no idea!  (I was now seriously getting freaked out.)  (Then a quick flash.)  Ah, wait a minute.  Is the name on the gas bill Kieran M…?  He’s a student of mine, and has been learning Japanese.

They went through the contents and found that it was indeed Kieran’s gas bill.  He was an electrical engineer who worked on construction sites, which would explain the men’s work clothes.  Mystery solved.  

Phew!  One of the most surrealistic conversations I’d ever been drawn into, I can tell you.

(See also:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/11/falling-asleep-on-right-bus-at-wrong.html)

(London, 2004)

PS (May 2025):  Someone who heard this story called it Kafkaesque.  The standard definition is:  

(from googling)  Quote Kafkaesque is a situation that is almost surreal. It is often considered to be a difficult situation, likely resembling a nightmare. Kafkaesque comes from the last name of Franz Kafka, a famous author known for his stories with surrealism and disoriented characters. Unquote

While the Lost Property Office episode was not exactly “difficult”, let alone “resembling a nightmare”, it certainly was surreal.

Brain-washed (Czech Republic / Switzerland / London)

Jana and I were walking around the open air market in Pelhrimov looking at the goods on display and commenting on them.  Suddenly she said to me, "I was just thinking to myself, 'Oh, these people are speaking Czech!  They're from the Czech Republic!'  Then I realise that I AM in the Czech Republic.  It's just that I've been speaking English to you the last few hours."

This reminds me of the late 80s when I used to commute to Zürich to visit the Gentle Giant.  We might sometimes go to student-populated areas as he was working at the university at the time.  After one of these weekend trips, I went directly from the airport to the University of London, where I was working at the time.  There were students dotted around the front entrance steps of the college, chatting.  I thought, “That’s not German.  I wonder what language it is?”  Although I didn’t, and still don’t, speak German, my brain had got so used to hearing German sounds that I couldn’t process English when I heard it!

(Czech Republic, August 2010 / Switzerland/London, 1987–9)

Go ask the computer (London/USA)

Email from me to Valerio:  Haha, LinkedIn has just told me, “Valerio is now connected to Natalie”. The ironies of this techno stuff, informing me some three decades after you got married.

Email from Valerio’s wife, Natalie:  We might need to be reminded of these things by a computer. Who knows, Valerio and I may be suffering with dementia by now.

(London/New Orleans, July 2011)

Trick or treat? (France)

Colette’s seven-year-old nephew Yann sat there at the table with two-thirds of his lunch untouched.  I pointed out that he was wasting food — to no avail.  

Then I remembered that we’d played marbles before lunch and had had lots of laughs, so I asked him if he’d like to play more marbles after lunch.  He nodded eagerly, eyes lighting up.  I said, “Well, you’ll need to eat up your lunch first.”  The next thing was he’d finished his food with gusto.  

Trouble was: I then forgot about the marbles.  (So did the boy.)

So what was meant to be “treat” turned out to be “trick”!  

It worked though.

(France, September 2011)

See also:  

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2022/08/how-to-get-children-to-eat-their-food.html 

A teacher can run but cannot hide (London)

My most avid reader and moral supporter, Valerio, has inspired this title with his comment on my blog “Never off duty”.

How right Valerio is.  

I was waiting for a bus around 11pm one warm summer’s evening last year when an apparition suddenly leapt out from behind me on the pavement, stood in front of me and said, with a big smile, “老师，你好，我是 Brenda! / Hello, Teacher, I am Brenda!”  

It was a Taiwanese ex-student who’d done my MA Bilingual Translation course back in 1998(??), and I hadn’t seen her since, which makes 12 years.  Yet she recognised me, in the dark, from behind!

A few months after that, I was on the bus home from St Paul’s, seated upstairs just in front of the top of the steps, therefore had my back turned to the steps.  

As the bus moved away from the next stop, I heard my name called out by someone who’d come upstairs.  It was another ex-student, David, who’d also recognised me from behind.

Indeed, Valerio, a teacher can run but cannot hide.

(London)