January 25th 2026年1月25日

✍️ I always make the same mistake. In the days prior to leaving Japan and boarding a flight back to Germany I start scheduling events in my diary for the following week. I think. Oh, been here, done this before.

I arrive in Frankfurt on the Copenhagen flight. “Jeeves, park the jet please. Thank you…..”

…..get home and open the workshop, go to a choir rehearsal, get out my ‘cello…..

✍️ But no. It doesn’t work like that. I’m fighting to concentrate in the choir. My ‘cello doesn’t sound right. I can’t calculate bills in front of customers. In town everyone is muffled up against the bitter cold. A shoe stares at me in a field….

The light is different. It’s eggshell blue (if you’re lucky) in Germany, marine blue in Japan.

✍️ There is litter on the trains and pavements. The Euros feel heavy in your pocket. The Aldi check-out feels 10 years out of date. The German language suddenly feels like hard work. There is no “reading the air” It’s all too direct. Not just the grammar, but the way it makes you interact with other people. It’s a totally different mindset. Most unsettling.

✍️ But you have travelled from one relatively civilized country to the other, thanks to Scandinavian Airways.

✍️ You passed through Denmark without seeing any American military; You were not pushed into a car by some masked thug working for an immigation authority; You were not arrested by the Met. for your disapproval of Israel’s genocide.Your appartment has not been hit by a Russian drone, leaving you without internet or hot water when the temperature is -15°c

✍️ So, in the words of a junior high school song, you could just say “Thank You”. Arigatou. You are alive and well.

✍️ Don’t try and do anything too complicated. Go to Karlsruhe and listen to all those marvellous young people singing at the Musikhochschule. Hear your son sing some Hugo Wolf, accompanied by a dedicated young Korean pianist.

Music. Where would we be without it…?

✍️ Let yourself be swept away by the design exhibition at the ZKM…after coffee and cake of course…..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZKM_Center_for_Art_and_Media_Karlsruhe

…be spirited away by a camera and some clever computer…….

✍️ …or simply indulge in some Baroque overkill…..

Margrave Charles III William of Baden-Durlach would have enjoyed this….

Skating round my backside! ho ho…..

✍️ Have a laugh in your mother tongue….in this case our bookgroup discusses “The Glassmakers” by Tracey Chevalier…..

Enough of this. Changing cultures is not just about getting on a plane…

✍️ It is changing language, and language is not just the words; changing how you interact with others; changing your thinking; adapting to the climate and struggling with your body clock. I find it hard work.

✍️ And I make the same mistake every time, thinking that life will just go as normal. For it doesn’t. Being away for a month gives your brain an abrupt sharp focus on your “normal” life when you return. In English we say “it’s a sea change”.

そして私はいつも同じ間違いを犯します。人生は普通に過ぎていく、と。でも、そうはいかないんです。1ヶ月も家を離れると、戻ってきた時に脳が急に「普通の」生活に意識を集中させられるんです。英語で「It’s a sea change（海が変わる）」と言います。

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Thank you for reading, and feel free to forward on to anyone who might be interested.

読んでくれてありがとう！。ご興味がある方にはお気軽に転送してください。

See you またね 🙋‍♂️

nigelwruddock@gmail.com

https://www.instagram.com/nigelruddock/

The End

終わり✍️