[Part 8] Tetsuo Shiota

I was a bookworm and spent my junior high school years reading books instead of studying. As a result, my high school entrance exams were a disaster, and for the first time in my life, I learned the price of not studying. If I said I became a study bug after that, the story would end there with a simple "Oh, I see." But when I entered high school, I wanted to pursue my childhood love of music, so I joined the choir club. This place was like a garden of women, and I transformed from a bookworm into a mere womanizer. I was given a free opportunity to put into practice what I had read in books. Trying to attract the girls' attention, I would write cheesy poems and send them to the girls in the club. In classical terms, it was like sending love letters; today, it would be like sending text messages on a cell phone. The roots of my becoming a writer, however humble, lie there. I began writing seriously at the age of thirty, when I was posted to the UK. Being single, I resumed writing to distract myself from the loneliness of living alone (and being too broke for any mischief) by escaping into my imagination. And I discovered that I could now depict the intricate folds of the adult male and female heart, something I couldn't put into words back in high school.

What happened to me between the ages of eighteen and thirty? And after that? Fortunately, I managed to graduate from high school without repeating a year and was able to enter the Faculty of Engineering at Keio University. I chose the Faculty of Engineering because, in my high school modern Japanese class, my interpretations of texts constantly clashed with the teacher's logic, leading me to develop a deep-seated distrust of the humanities. And yet, I became a writer... At Keio's Faculty of Engineering, you don't have to choose your major upon admission. I liked that too. There's no way to know what you want to do at eighteen or nineteen. When I moved up to my third year, I chose the Department of Electrical Engineering. At the time, light-current electrical engineering was all the rage. I had chosen French as my second foreign language. The reason was utterly impure. I thought it would be cool to read *Vogue* in the original and tell girls about the latest issue, but I got hooked and continued with it for four years. Thanks to that, I now have no trouble reading the menu when I eat French food, and business trips to French-speaking countries are no problem. It's practical.

When I entered my fourth year, I chose (or rather, was accepted into) Professor Sasaki's lab, which researched theoretical physics of light (lasers). This may seem to contradict what I said earlier, but I questioned why everyone was aiming for light-current engineering and thought an academic path would be better. There, I was solving Schrödinger's wave equation. The Wave Motion Gun is not a patent of *Space Battleship Yamato*. It belongs to Schrödinger. The laser experiments were always done late at night because the school building was old and light would leak in. I experimented all through the night. Furthermore, since some equipment was at the Yotsuya campus on the School of Medicine / Keio University Hospital side, I often went there as well. This was also at night. I was always sleep-deprived. However, the only time I went to the Mita campus I longed for was during the school festival. That's why the protagonists in my novels "Yume no Nagare" (Flow of Dreams) and "Mugen no Mai" (Dance of Dreams and Reality) stroll under the autumn foliage of the golden ginkgo avenue at Hiyoshi, bathed in sunlight filtering through the trees, and whisper words of love, huddled together on a bench on the Mita campus as fallen leaves dance around them. The only avenue that surpasses the beauty of that ginkgo-lined street is the one at Hokkaido University. However, Hokkaido University is Junichi Watanabe's territory. I will pursue the beauty of Hiyoshi and Mita.

The impressions left on the heart never fade. They ferment. Humans are not computers. There's no way an output will appear the instant an input is made. Like wine, a period of maturation is necessary. A university is like a wine barrel; it's the primary fermentation stage where you mature yourself. Just as there are tens of thousands of types of wine, there are various degrees and methods of maturation. It is the students—you—who choose the method. That is what's important. There's a tendency to dislike being a salaried worker, a "company man." I dislike it too. However, getting paid is compensation for being made to do things you dislike and for having your time constrained. Nothing will begin if you just think of unpleasant things as unpleasant. How can you make it interesting for yourself? That is where ideas come from, and that leads to business. Unaged wine doesn't taste good. Next, a secondary fermentation is needed. I believe that a company is what provides that opportunity.

Despite graduating from the Faculty of Science and Technology, I chose a general trading company for my career. I thought it would offer more diverse opportunities than a manufacturer. But with my flawed personality, I was shuffled around within the company. Three years in the Systems Department. Four years in the Electronic Equipment Department. Two years posted in London (the standard was actually five years, but I was sent back after two for poor performance and fooling around too much). Two years in Machinery Division Control (exile). Six years in the Communications Project Department. In this communications role (in an era before IP), I spent about 160 days a year on roughly 10 business trips to the Middle East for six years. This was around the time Iraq invaded Kuwait, and Israeli bombings of Lebanon were still active. I had enough life-threatening experiences to count on my fingers. The head of NEC's Middle East and Africa Division whom I met at that time is still a close family friend. He is a great senior in life, someone who warmly watched over my difficult personality, and I cannot thank him enough. At the time, I hated the smelly and dirty Middle East. But looking back, all of those experiences have become like treasures. Being shuffled around gave me the insight to see things from a bird's-eye view and to connect the dots across the flow of the world.

After that, I was moved to the evaluation department for investment projects. I was there for six years. That was when I first called myself an analyst (it wasn't an official company title, but no one objected when I said I would put it on my business card). I was recognized in my 20th year at the company. The name Nissho Iwai no longer exists. I also left and, through my connections in the energy sector, found a new job at Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. (J-POWER). I consider myself a late bloomer. However, this period was necessary. The Middle East, energy, the UK—everything has crystallized into my fourth novel, "Gen'eimu (A Phantom Reflected in the Mist)." Publishers are reluctant to publish it due to its excessive length, but those who have read the photocopied manuscript are amazed by the world of fierce bidding in the Middle East, the use of energy in international politics, and the intersecting motives of government agencies. And they shake their heads in disbelief at the reality of a trading company man's life. But for me, that is merely the stage setting. However, it is precisely because of my more than 20 years of experience that I can construct that setting realistically, allowing the love story between the trading company man and the mysterious beauty Murasakino to shine like an afterglow. The wine has finished its secondary fermentation. And it has been bottled to be drunk and is now on the shelf. With four years of university and 27 years of company life, a total of 31 years, if it were a wine, it would be a 1973 vintage. It's a shame it wasn't a good year for grapes. Therefore, this wine might be said to have many impurities and taste awful.