The JICC recently conducted an interview with Mr Pred Evans, who spent three years in Japan on the JET Programme and currently works as the Country Manager for the British Council in Trinidad & Tobago. Below is a summary of the interview.

Please give a brief self-introduction, including reference to your duties as an Assistant Language Teacher and to your current occupation.

Hello. I¡Çm Pred Evans, a Welshman who left Wales at 18 years of age to study French at Oxford University. On graduating, I headed to Japan on the JET Programme, to a place called Sendai on the north-east coast of Honshu. I fell in love with Japan, its people, its culture and its amazing food, staying the full three years allowed at the time. Now I am 32 years old (Ouch!) and working as Country Manager for the British Council in the tiny two-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad & Tobago.

I was an Assistant Language Teacher at Okino Junior High School for the first two years, followed by a one-year stint at Itsutsubashi Junior High School. As an ALT, I was involved at the formal level in the preparation and delivery of English lessons, or parts of lessons. At times I would be the one who would warm up the class with a motivating session to wake up all and sundry. At other times, I would be called to act out a role-play or inject some interaction and group activity including games into the more formal textbook-based learning. And often I would be asked to tell the students about my own Welsh culture, and about life in the UK. All this was on the formal classroom-based level. On an informal basis, being an ALT meant a lot of fun getting to know students in the school corridors, out playing sport or participating in all kinds of club activities. Being an ALT also meant full participation in school festivals.

Why did you apply to join the JET Programme?

Honestly speaking, by complete chance. Japan was never a place I had any burning desire to go to, and I had never had any contact with the country or its people before. All I knew was that I wanted to experience a new culture and language and that my feet were seriously itchy for an adventure of some kind. One autumn day in 1996 I saw the JET Programme advertised in the college lodge and promptly attended a seminar which featured an ex-JET talking animatedly about her experience of Japan and the programme. The opportunity and the overall package seemed too good to miss, I duly applied.

Please describe one of the most memorable experiences from your time in Japan.

Selecting and describing a memorable experience from my time on the JET Programme is a bit like sharing a photo of an awesome view of nature which was experienced first-hand. The photo struggles to capture or equal the experience itself.

My most memorable experience is a very down-to-earth recollection of my regular visits to the 'okonomiyaki' restaurant just round the corner from where I lived. I was introduced to the owner, the middle-aged, apron-wearing Kenji, by a second-year ALT, who took me there for lunch one day. As well as the excellent Hiroshima-style pancakes, filled with fresh cabbage, soba noodles and pork, the highlight of this tiny eating place was Kenji himself, and the customers he engaged with every day. It is in this nondescript corner of a narrow street in out-of-town Sendai that I was taught Japanese. Kenji could speak immaculate English, and used to work as a businessman in Tokyo before taking up the 'okonomiyaki' business with his Akita-born wife. His intelligent, probing and often outspoken conversation, peppered with the colourful input of customers., gave me countless hours of pleasure. I felt it a privilege to go round and become a part of Kenji's life, and I would try to repay his kindness by taking troops of ALT friends around to eat and drink as often as I could.

What did you learn from your stay in Japan and your participation in the JET Programme?

There is nothing quite so humbling as arriving in an unfamiliar country without a word of the language and without any real previous knowledge of the culture, its people and its customs. From learning how to eat your first set meal while glancing at the Japanese man sitting at the adjacent table, to understanding the nuances of a well- poised question and all its suggestive overtones, getting to know Japanese culture takes time, patience and some frustration at first. With time, Japan taught me how to think of others and to be aware of the effect my words and actions have on them. Japan taught me to listen and to simply shut up at times, to be comfortable with silence and to actually communicate through being silent. It also taught me to be open to different ways of looking at the same thing, and to question values and assumptions which I had taken for granted since childhood.

My JET experience was also a lesson in how to connect with people of all ages, to find common ground when there is seemingly not an ounce available, and to turn this into a positive exchange or friendship. It extends well beyond the school and right into the area where you live, the people around you, in the shops, in the restaurants, in the bars and on the streets. It is a phenomenal opportunity to develop professionally and personally, for which I will always be grateful.

What impact, if any, did your experience in the JET Programme have on the development of your career?

The JET Programme experience proved to be a great plus when, in 2001, just over a year after I had finished it, while in the middle of studying Japanese in a university in Kyoto, I applied for the post of School Links Coordinator at the British Council in Tokyo. This position involved setting up links between schools in Japan and schools in the UK, and demanded a considerable amount of liaison with teachers of English in Japan, including JETs. My role over the next five years developed to encompass the management of teacher, headteacher and student exchanges as School Exchanges Manager, and the implementation of a Japanese language assistant scheme to the UK. My experience of JET contributed directly towards the launching of a national lesson plan competition for JETs of all nationalities as well as the development of resources for teachers to use in the classroom.

In July this year I began my new life, but still with the British Council, as Country Manager of the office in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. It has obviously been a massive change from Japan and it was a real wrench to leave, but I am settling in well and the work is stimulating and challenging. I am still basically involved in what I started doing as a JET back in 1997 - building bridges towards a greater understanding between other countries and the UK. It is a continuation of the partnership-building which is at the core of the JET Programme, an attempt to bring people together, to change perceptions and to learn from one another. Thanks to the opportunity offered by JET, I have been able to follow my dream and experience two very different cultures while learning and growing each step of the way.

What would you say to someone who was considering applying to join the JET Programme?

In three words: 'Go for it!' The cliches about the experience changing your life are true. Whether it is for one, two, three or more years, the JET Programme will change the way you think, the way you act, and the way you are, for life. It is a phenomenal opportunity to live and work in one of the safest, cleanest, most convenient and efficient societies in the world. And if you are accepted and decide to become a JET, relax, be yourself and draw on your sense of humour. Travel to Japan with an open mind and you will learn and come to appreciate so many new things. And one final tip - learn as much Japanese as possible! It really is the best way to penetrate and come to an understanding of the culture.