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This Limerick Life - Catherine Bourke
Catherine Bourke made the switch from Limerick's Far East – Oola – to the Far East of the the world to teach English in Japan. She went as part of the JET (Japanese and Exchange Teaching) programme, stayed for two years and became so popular that she was offered the role of co-ordinating the initiative by the Japanese Embassy on her return to Ireland
I wore high heels on one occasion and I swore I'd never do it again. A lot of people in Japan looked at me because I am quite tall. I'm 5' 11'. I generally towered over a lot of people and in Japan I felt massive. I had this huge presence over there. I would walk out my apartment door and suddenly everyone saw me. It makes you think about yourself and 'Oh God, do I look ok today?' but it gets to the stage it's water off a duck's back. I wore high heels once but I was too tall! Never again.
It's a big change from life in Oola. There was a lot of cultural shock, definitely, but I thought of it as interesting and new rather than scary. There was even the giant cultural shock of seeing massive insects and the heat. I was based in Kumamoto city which has a population of 670,000. I've never lived in such a big city. It was a tiny apartment block only six storeys high surrounded by massive apartment blocks 25 storeys in the air, very different to Oola. I'd be on a tram not knowing what people were saying with all these voices talking around me but I would tune out because I couldn't understand anything. So you are in your own cocoon a lot of the time. When you don't understanding the language, that can be unnerving.
The Japanese welcome was incredible, even from one of the country's biggest celebrities. Their manners are impeccable. I wanted to thank them for giving me this opportunity but all I got was 'no, no, no... thank you for coming'. It was very much they were glad to have me there. The kids were lovely and because I was teaching teenagers I got to know about their pop culture. I found that was a great way to sway them, instead of saying 'do you like apples?' I could say 'do you like Ryo Nishikido from the boyband Kanjani 8?' One of the teachers was going to a concert and my favourite Japanese actor/singer (Ryo Nishikido) was performing. There were 3,000 Japanese women screaming for his attention. He was walking past my area, spotted me, shouted out 'hello how are you?' and I was so shocked I kind of stared at him. The women were saying 'you lucky thing!'. One of my students was close to me and she was screaming my name as well. I got kudos there!
In my second year in Japan I decided I wanted to do martial arts, while in Rome as they say, but ended up breaking my two front teeth. I went along to the local police station's judo class. I actually didn't even get involved in the combat part of it. It wasn't until the last 10 minutes when the instructor asked 'do you want to warm down with the kids?'. We were running very fast, somebody called out my name, I turned, tripped and went flying in to the wall! So when I tell people I broke my teeth in a judo class they generally are in shock that I was in a physical fight when the truth is I actually ran into a wall. Very embarrassing! My perpetual image from that night was lying on the floor holding my mouth with the judi sensei coming over to me. He was the epitome of a sensei, he had balding hair, a white smig, a wooden stick and wearing an all white outfit. He leaned over me asking 'me are you OK?'. I decided to take up karate then because I felt there might be bad karma in that judo room. I love karate and got a brown belt, one off a black belt.
I had only eaten sushi once before going but now I must visit a Japanese restaurant every week. When I was growing up I was quite a fussy eater, but I do love my food. People who know me know that I even organise my time around eating and I am always thinking about my next meal. When I got to Japan I had only had sushi once before I left so it was a bit of a rude awakening but I grew to love it. Even now I still have to visit a Japanese restaurant at least once a week here in Dublin I got so used to it. My favourite is unagi sushi which is grilled eel. Unfortunately, it is much rarer on sushi menus outside of Japan. I also loved daikon, a type of radish, covered in mustard which was very spicy. There are knives and forks if you ask for them but after three days with my host family at the start, they grilled it into me how to use chopsticks and I'm quite proficient with them now.
The whole experience was borne out of frustration and exasperation I was in UCC doing Environmental Science. My degree programme was in Applied Ecology. In my final year I was at a post graduate fair in UCC. I had gone around to every career stand and because my degree programme is in such a specialised area you're generally expected to do further research. I loved my course but wanted to work for a while. Every stand had no job offer for me as a science student and the last stand in that hallway was this guy standing with a big map of Japan behind him. Through exasperation and exhaustion and being turned down everywhere I asked him what he was there for and he sold me the JET programme there and then. He was in the job I'm doing right now so it's come full circle and now I'm at career fairs selling the programme to people who had never heard of it.
Interview: Donal O'Regan
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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