uh it's called a gentleman from [Music] Japan Thomas I want to thank you so much for taking the time to come here this early morning you live where chba Chiba way across the Tokyo Makari You guitar good way over there that's a nice area I like that area that's right that's really really nice it's really developed I when it was just race fields I'm just kidding it was sea it was sea before it end was Landfield I this all Landfield it was a rubbish dump it was a garbage dump that's why they used to dump the actually no no the garbage they didn't dump it there they they did they took it on in Edo period 200 Peri because then they did it over here in o oh good they don't realize that used to be a dump there so underneath all of that it's just going to that was just over there the other night boom one day yeah you know what I mean it's going to explode all this stuff's going to you want to avoid a Dior like a big big big what they say a beached whale yeah they explode too yes they do yeah so you came you came here from you spent on you stayed here overnight didn't you yeah um down in s saki saki but you you work in Tokyo too yep because you because teaching at um nidi I'm a I am a professor uh associate professor a researcher and a teacher at n day what do you research history I think that was something you told me the last time we met are we recording now we are recording I mean as Bigg as we can be but it doesn't matter good morning these two are your cameras so these are the two that you'll talk to when you say hi Mom hi Dad that type of stuff we talk to them that I make that yeah whichever one you pick if you pick that one is good because that's the one you're going to talk to at the end okay the red one okay anyway Thomas where were you born I was born in London okay in 1978 let me see where was I was here at that time I came here in 74 so you were just learning how to crawl or you just four years old twinkle in my mother's tnk if you came here in 74 I came in 74 wa what am I thinking about you weren't even a twinkle in your dad tkl my you were the last thing they were thinking about probably by that point yeah I don't think do you have siblings do you have siblings yeah yeah I have one brother and one sister are you the Elder the oldest okay so they weren't thinking about anyone yet they weren't thinking about anybody so there's three of you there's three of us okay the boys's the oldest and then they had a girl and this that's it that's it yeah how many years between you and your sister nine years same mom and dad same mom and dad yeah that's a lot of time that's a lot of time oh yeah really are your parents doing well my mother is dead I hope my father is doing very well yeah okay how old were you when she passed uh she passed in two 20 20 I think okay so I would have been 42 you had a chance to be with her um it was during covid uh so we couldn't travel but I there she was sick for a long time before that and I had plenty of time over that time to be with her it was it was a mercy for her to be honest with you so I mean if we look at that in a positive way uh you can look at death positively uh and that was that was good uh my dad is is uh well he'd be 73 I think this year yep he's retiring going on lots of walking holidays that kind of thing he's having a good time what' he do his work what was his work he was a lawyer he was um he his main thing has been what's called in Britain legal aid so that's um providing defense for people that can't afford their own defense uh he was um instrumental in having the system revamped in the 80s and after that he changed from the Law Society in London and started defending professional people who got into trouble during the course of their jobs so for example if a doctor or a nurse or a an accountant or somebody like that for whatever reason got into trouble um his his uh um point was providing professional uh help for those those people often that ended up with people who'd been accused of malpractice or something like that but um sometimes of course people do that and other times they didn't it's just stuff being thrown at them by people that don't like them those are the people that he tended to um he wasn't a defense lawyer such as I understand it and I'm not an expert on my father's career right but um he was coordinating the office that dealt with this this kind of thing in in Sheffield which is in northern England did you ever have to wear a wig no no when did they do they still do that they do that yeah they do I'm sure I think it's barrers the barers that's the top the judge still wears it my that yeah I believe so you need to check with an expert about the bar still wears it okay yeah and the judges but uh I don't think my dad ever had a wig he wasn't that kind of a a lawyer right but do some of thew did some of the lawyers in the past wear them I think they had to right I think barrs only the barrs wore them which would be our which would be our would be our judges we consider that we call them judges in judges and judges as well barrs are I think a higher level of lawyer that but I don't know they have to be called to the bench they're called King's Council so what that means you're asking the wrong man I'm sorry okay all right we can we can get some expert in here if you want and uh there must be somebody in the club who knows they probably could be but we're here a little bit too early they wouldn't be here at this time in the morning but we we really could I'm sure there's there are people here that would know all about it this club is quite diverse we have over 60 different nationalities we're quite like England okay yes about right here so tell me so growing up in England do you find did you find yourself being more um academic or more Sports minded as a little kid um that's a good question nobody's ever asked me that before I'm certainly not a very coordinated Sports person I could run fast uh I think I'm the kind of person that only gets motivated when they feel it's worthwhile being motivated for something so if I don't see the point when I was a kid if I didn't see the point in doing something I probably didn't do very well at it so for example maths I didn't really understand the reason why I was being forced to do this at school what grade do you think that came to an you came to an awareness of this well when you become an adult you realize you have to do whatever it is that you need to do to to get on in life uh at some point you get on with everything but I see it in my son now and I hope he's not watching this uh he does what he needs to do for some things and for the things that he's passionate about he go goes in until he fall Falls over and goes to sleep so and I see that once you have kids I think and you may agree with this um you start to understand yourself a bit better because you see in them perhaps what was in you once before right um and maybe that's just me I don't know um but I started to I think I can understand myself a bit better through through that how many children do you have two I was about to say my daughter is not that way inclined she's excellent at doing whatever she does uh she just does what she needs to do is she the younger of the two she's the older she's 13 she's much more mature don't tell me there's nine years between the two no no no it's nine they're 13 and 11 now so two and a half years two and a half years okay and they fight like hell all the time yeah verbally yeah yeah yes yes yes occasionally slightly more well I I don't think your son would get to I don't think he'd end up on the best end of that endt sick if it became visic no that's still they're still in the same size roughly yeah yeah I love them very much but I wish they didn't argue so much okay and your wife is Japanese yeah junko yeah junko okay that doesn't mean she's Japanese because it's junko it doesn't no it doesn't I was just saying that yes she's Japanese and her name is jungle I like I like to call people by their names because it gives them more value I think so it's interesting as a child you felt that you had to I mean you basically did what you felt you really wanted to do and and when you didn't want to no one was going to stop you when I was a child I felt like I had to do everything I didn't have a choice it pretty much that's the way it was made because I'm your father's age and I think he probably grew up the same way that was the time we just finished the Great War and everybody had a chicken in the pot and we were pretty well but they were working hard didn't have time to give you the luxury of choosing what you want to do you did what you were told to do to be honest I still had to do what I told I was told to do okay and I did and I passed all my exams but just the one the exams I like the French uh German history I Bo up here the other ones the maths or um kind of science uh I got the C which is the pass Mark and I knew that I had to get that so I would do just enough what history you love too yeah that's what I that's what I have in the end been granted the pleasure of doing as a career and I'm very very very grateful for that how did you spend your your your leisure time as a kid what did you really get absorbed with those were the days when the first computers were coming out the spectrums and the commodor of this world and all those kind of things uh it's always fun to to play those games with my my friends but my parents wouldn't allow us to have a computer we didn't even have a TV until I was six and that was black and white TV um I think I spent a lot of time in the garden just digging holes and playing soldiers and stuff like that it was with your brother all on my own yeah both I think we we did both um I I've always liked books um what type I read lots of books mainly historical fiction in those days yeah it was all sorts of things but um yeah I think I read quite a lot uh detective novels in those days though I haven't read one of those in 30 years do you have any ideas as to how you developed this interest I mean was it because your mother reading to you pick my grand my grandfather was on whose side mother or father well both were into history and historical things but it's my mother's father who was the most influential on me he was a a Classics teacher so a teacher of um Latin and Greek and he just told the stories of the ancient Greeks you're his first grandchild yes I was the the oldest cousin yeah um he just told us all these stories uh um as stories I mean actually they're Legends right so there's not history but it's the idea of going back in in time and um he he was the man his name is Lawrence John Vier although he hated the name Lawrence so he just called John how how do you spell it l e w r n c yeah l a l u r Nell John V you'd say in America via V okay yeah the um yeah he was a a fine upstanding man a school teacher his whole life um apart from in the Army where he's posted to Northeast India and fought against the Japanese and so he was in World War I World War II yeah yes he wounded um flown out that was the only time you ever went on an airplane until the 1990s and um he was this is a very very poignant Point here when I married the Japanese lady he was really happy it was it was like is he still with this now I'm afraid no he's he's been dead for 15 years now I think yeah yeah he would have he would have been more than 100 by now he was born in 1916 in the middle of the first world war so that makes he'd been 108 now okay happy birthday Gramps W um but yeah he for him the the conciliation of the of the two of uh of me marrying junko was was something quite special unfortunately he didn't live to see us have kids but uh he kept on saying when are they going to have kids when are they going to have kids he met her he got a chance to yeah yes of course yes we were married in 2003 and he died in 2009 so it was six six years there so yeah it uh it a wonderful thing for him as well as for us as well and um that always stays did he ever get a chance to come to Japan no not that I know of I doubt it and if he did it certainly wasn't no he can't have done because he didn't ever fly apart from when he was wound when he was wounded didn't fly until 1991 and after that he certainly didn't come to Japan thoughh in fact he probably never left Europe people didn't in those days they they they stay where they were well or you might go to a luxury holiday would be France for an English person English person that would be an absolute luxury in those days it's not like today where you can just hop on an airplane and go anywhere as long as you got the cash to do it that's right even if you had the cash back there the complications of dealing with everything and making the bookings I mean you had to have a real specialist you couldn't just go to Expedia and say give me some hotels right that's true yeah so he's the one that got you involved in really I mean really he gave you the passion for history and then you just ran with it so after high school in high school did you find yourself starting to home it a little bit to you get a little more defined with yeah in England there's good and bad in this in England you can drop everything you don't like at 16 years old so I dropped all the maths and all the science and uh I carried on with French and German and politics actually I tried to do history but the history books were so boring I hope none of my history teachers are watching now my history books were so boring I dropped it after six weeks and changed to uh politics and government which is is always useful to know about politics and how the systems work many people don't know how the systems work and that is a real handicap in in life I think history I carried on in my own time and um I did a a degree at a university called Bradford which is in northern England French and German again the idea was to be an interpreter or a translator you were you were studying history however you also your language you think becoming a you were a ling I stopped studying history because it's too boring the books they were using the things using this this was as soon as you got into your uni or university 18 uh 16 years old so 16 so you dropped that along with math and everything yeah yeah and you went into the languages I went into the languages and politics law uh not not law sorry politics um governance that kind of thing and then went to University to do languages thinking I would become a translator or an interpreter um I didn't do that it's I have every respect for people that do that but it's quite a lonely job you're sitting on your own normally freelance inter U translators are often freelance they work from home they don't see a lot of people it's it's all coming through emails or telephone this become your real when did you start to realize this because you didn't know this going into it well I went on a a an in what we call internship these days um to Germany Seamans um I worked there for seven months and I was in the translation Bureau and I met lots of Freelancers while I was there and I was handling the the the administrative work behind it basically and it it just didn't appeal to me in the end had but you you had you done it for a year by that time I mean had you been involved with it for about a year seven months but the four years of the degree including the The Internship year were all um were all focused towards interpreting this is when uh the UK was in the EU uh linguists were needed for all sorts of reasons and very shortly after this um unfortunately the department closed down because the UK has little value for languages and cultural understanding of others and so honestly all of the courses um focused at what I studied in the 90s have now closed down now you just caught me on the one part you said they have no use for languages are cultural understand no perceived use no perceived use of languages or cultural understanding of others I'm very sad to say that who where'd you get that well it it's just they never stated that this is something you've just come to that conclusion yeah but if they had they would have kept funding these these positions and these courses these courses closed down for lack of funding for lack of government support for lack of cultural support for lack of interest in the nation in general um there was when I was there was only two or three available when I applied for University in 1995 um B and Bradford and there may have been a couple of others but most of them were focused most of the language degrees were focused on literature and um other things rather than contemporary issues um Bradford closed down a few years after I left maybe in the early 2000s I don't know what happened to B but I do know that there's a very very very big lack of anybody in the UK that can deal with language is at the high enough level for um for the UK to be able to actually act for itself at that level rather than depend upon people from other countries to be doing the English interpreting into English and I think that's a very sad thing now why do you think why do you think they focused changed their views and start to think more I don't think that's changed I just think that I was the last year to get free University education and that was the year the entrance year 1996 uh from the next year onwards people had to start paying their fees this focused people onto money-making degrees and there's nothing wrong with that people were paying for their or people's parents or people themselves through part-time work were paying for their degrees and were expecting to go into well-paid jobs afterwards the ones which would immediately provide the the buzz of of a financial success Etc or an obvious career um started to drop off and uh languages unfortunately um in the UK as I understand it were part of part of that there just wasn't simply enough interest anymore well I can see that automation also the fact that our technology AI is taking away a lot of positions and and a lot of Need for um running math equations in your head like I used to because I loved math it's hard to do that now now when I can just type it in I I used to remember all of my combinations and all of the phone numbers of several friends I don't know how many but I could just run off the back of my hand you said the name and I knew their phone number now I don't know mine basic I'm but why would why would you why would you when you can take your phone out as long as you have the only thing that's necessary now that would bring all of us to our knees is electricity if we don't have that we're done we're done if that shuts down somewhere and all the batteries blank out and everything we are we would be walking zombies literally as a species we were find it difficult survive a lot of people would just die because their hearts pacemakers stuff like that just go out yeah I yeah you're right and we wouldn't be sitting here underneath these lights know it' be hot and warm and this bu it would be completely different yeah it would that's that's something be a whole different thing that's the movie to be making okay when all of that goes that's your movie that's the movie I'm not into that type of thing announcement ladies and gentlemen that's not my type of thing I'm I'm an optimist and I believe that um this is all for a good reason I I really wish we had spent more and and focus more on hi instead of AI because human in human human intelligence the reason why is because I think that mankind this isn't our first rodeo no I think we've done done this maybe two or three times and the lost places of Atlantis and everything else were real and I think at that time the technology was so Advanced that I'm sure they didn't need an iPhone they used telepathy and I'm sure they had to have some sort of map or something to make the pyramids impossible not a single one of those blocks are the same shape or size and there's no way to do that unless you have a map or a plan the engineering the architectural skill and the closer the further we got away from that time the worst the architecture became that's nobody could ever do no one looking at skyscrapers here and compar them with the pyramids and it's completely wrong think about it because these are too easy to fall over they're not round they should be more circular like it doesn't make sense yeah it doesn't make these are like mat sticks sitting up in the ground and the earthquake will take this all over that quick and then we build Volcan then we build I don't know what will happen I don't know what will happen but I think because mankind has passed and been through this and then we had some Calamity whatever it may have been the few people left weren't the scientists and the smart people they were the guys who said okay I need food and their kids came up thinking the same thing and it just we had to start all over again yep I think there's a lot in what you say there I think so we had to start all over it's going be hard to prove so anyway so you you go through you decide to get into college you decide you don't want to be a translator yep then what did you do from that time interpreter well I didn't didn't know what to do so I came to Japan wait this is after your four years after you finished yeah um when I was in my third year or probably the fourth year actually uh I I went to the careers office for the first time I always tell my students to start thinking about careers in the first year so students if you're watching start thinking about it in the first year okay I didn't I it was probably I was probably just about to leave um and I went to the careers service um looking around thinking I should have come here before and then on the sign on the wall there's just a little printed piece of paper saying become a Yen millionaire interested question mark I thought I always wanted to be a millionaire and I said yep so I asked the careers person said that's for the jet program and it's where we send uh students I'm sorry graduates to uh Japan the Japanese government hires graduates from universities all over the world and sends them to Japan to work in schools uh for a year up to three years but year yearly renewable contract and I said uh previously oh I had heard of this before um now what year are we talking now this 2000 2000 yeah Years A Millionaire yeah yeah wa but I'm a Yen millionaire is it's a joke right because Yen millionaire of course is not that big a Millionaire right all right I probably got a million you can get right I could go millionaire yeah I can be a Yen millionaire by just going to the at you didn't know this at that time well I kind of did it was a joke but you thought okay yeah it caught me and um but I'd always thought no I'll never go to Japan and my kids love this when I tell them this because they they daddy you never would have met Mommy and we wouldn't be here and well you wouldn't be doing this and all that um but it's true I I literally had not thought about Japan I knew nothing about Japan and I had even said just an offthe cuff comment a year before I wouldn't do that I wouldn't do that I would go to Japan and then I ended up interviewing at the embassy in London um the Ed education Ministry people mumaw um interview along with people from the embassy and local people as well um they're trying to work out who would fit in who wouldn't cause any for this jet program for the jet program yeah it's quite a long it's quite they don't they're spending a lot of money Japanese government is spending a lot of money you know the Japanese government uh has to tick all the boxes before they can let any money go um so there was at least one possibly two interviews and then I think it was about 6 months wait until uh found out that I was going to Japan I had no idea about Japan so I said send me anywhere I had tick the Box saying I don't care where I go um you didn't want to go to Germany or France since you spoke the language uh I'd already been there but the but the live was different yeah I I'd lived in both for half a year for the internships I did an internship in France as well as a teaching internship in France and I think I'd preferred the teaching rather than the Translating um anyway uh 2000 year 2000 July I end up in Tori prefecture not knowing anything about Tori or Japan I couldn't speak a word of Japanese uh it was an amazing two years um because Tori is the most rural depopulated prefecture in Japan or the smallest population um it was a real bonus for me because I like languages anyway and I was able to learn Japanese at least to a basic extent there foreigners there well there were there were some other people uh on the jet program um and also uh we at one point I got involved in a language Exchange program which was multiple languages there were Chinese Arabic Japanese English French as well probably and we used to meet together uh they most of them were students uh Tor University and we used to meet together and share languages and stuff and that was fun that's the kind of thing I liked in those days anyway it was a great opportunity to learn Japanese and it and it Formed into my life because but having a good base at the beginning and then going on to learn it to business level essentially has formed what I do I mean I wouldn't be doing what I do now if I didn't have Japanese so you had to read and write as well uh certainly reading my handwritten is not good because you to do that at that time right we don't need to hand write anymore even then you did not have to well I did I and I did several hundreds about 600 got in those two years it got about 600 and yes it was thousand times each or something like that but I haven't ever read them I haven't written them since you don't need to but you do that's a good way to input it too yeah you know if that's the way to do it right and did you do that a little bit Yeah it it it's the multiple sentes most definitely yeah and it's not the same when you're just typing or or with your thumb on a smartphone because it does it all for you but of course like you said we don't need that anymore you don't and especially for somebody who has to take shortcuts because I'm not a mother speaker of a mother tongue speaker of Japanese uh I had to jump um at various points to get over to the next level to ensure that I could do my job and ensure that I could be responsible to my colleagues um make sure I didn't I wasn't Deadwood if you like if does that make sense yes because otherwise if you're not they carrying you right yeah they're carrying yeah that's right and I one I don't want to be carried so when you're teach your classes now are you doing it in Japanese I do some classes in Japanese most of it's English uh U my job I do teach classes of course but most of my job is actually admin or um organizational or um research based so it's about one3 one/ thir one3 I would say I teach six classes a week which is not an awful lot uh three of those are English classes which I teach history in English in those classes two are zinar classes which are a higher level with a very small bunch of students what's a small bunch of students um around 10 and what's a l what's your regular class basically 30 or 40 yeah well that's that's fine kind of normal um uh the the English classes are for First Years in this case um I enjoy doing that it it it's just comes comes naturally it the first years are fun they're still very pure they're not looking to the careers yet they're not looking at the wider World um Etc and it's fun but I then enjoy working with the older students in a much much more focused and personal way they actually have some opinions now and their opinions but also I need to get them into the workforce and to be valid members of society and it's different from just teaching a class to First Year's uh which is much lighter um for the the fourth years we're talking how to get into the workforce how to get into companies how to get into uh Regional government um uh Administration um teaching etc etc and counseling them along the way it's a long slug for these Japanese students you're counseling them as well to a certain extent yeah that's my job that's my job I'm there I'm there it's called a zar teacher uh the Zar um yeah teacher I guess shid no sense would be the Japanese word so guide guid guer almost um not it's not only academic it's actually about creating them as human adults and social members of society um other teachers will be taking them on the law courses or the journalism courses or the economics or politics courses I take mine for history but as part of that I make sure that they have presentation skills discussion skills critical thinking skills and uh also when we when they're writing their their graduation projects or their large basically uh graduation papers right um 7,000 words or something we also talk about the careers and they um yeah that's that's my job what's the percentage difference between boys and girls in your classes it's probably about 50/50 we we interview for those classes so they have to come and interview and I I think I want 5050 uh male or female I want uh probably shouldn't say I want some Jokers I want some serious people I want uh some overseas students uh perhaps a quarter to a third uh which at the moment means uh from the People's Republic of China um really so most of so most of you students are Asian oh they're all Asian they're all Asian you don't have any wers okay ethnically oh this is noan University no we we uh at the moment I don't think we'd have anybody in our student body in our fouryear student body who's not from Asia I wouldn't have thought so there plenty of people of mixed race like my children and your children uh who are born raised in Japanese but with different Heritage right and different ancestry but they're not coming from overseas to come there unless it's just for a short term almost all of our overse yeah we have some shortterm people from all over right exchange students exchang right I'm working with them from this year as well which is going to be fun because then I'll be teaching at a higher level in English than I have done for a long time but it gives you it gives you a relief valve too and helps you to check yourself too yeah how you see it absolutely that's the biggest thing I think whenever you're teach yeah that's right it helps you to check yourself how have I really been interpreting this when you have to explain to someone else in your mother time yeah it's a really good point um that's something you really self-awareness and it helps you to become a better teacher everyone should have to in a way learn to teach and I think teachers should be moved around out of their subjects yeah so they're learning those are the best classes when the kids can see the person who's supposed to be helping them digest this information or absorb it are learning too instead of this is just the way it is and this nobody wants to hear that nobody wants to hear that especially when they know it's not spoton that's your opinion yes I think that's why I didn't like education much when I was a kid I I sometimes feel that I was somewhat blessed that I wasn't academically inclined they passed me by I didn't learn to read until later and that they let me pass because I think I was quiet didn't create any problems and it was a big school they didn't feel they felt sorry for me so they just passed me on which was not doing me any favors but I never became indoctrinated like the other kids that were trying to get the best grades and stuff and I look at their lives compared to mine and it's different I'm happy with mine I'm a rule breaker I mean the rules they're asking you to hold by and you you have to you have to believe that to go that way that's why I like getting up at 2 I get up at 2:30 in the morning I usually go walking and I love walking that time in the morning here in Tokyo I was talking to my mother-in-law last night who I think she's 90 now she's saying why do you get S I said because there are no rules I have to follow I can walk down the middle of the street I can cross anytime the lights don't mean anything to me where do you walk all over I all over to in the city I live right by Abu Garden Place so I walk everywhere around this area within an hour of my place go on and I just have a ball and you see and I was telling her she said don't you feel isn't it dangerous I said this is not at all I see young women walking around and they're not afraid I can come by and even when it gets colder and I'm wearing all black and black gloves and a knit cap I pass by police and the police Know Me Now by all the because we have so many embassies around here they say good morning I say good morning yeah they see me coming all the time I love this area because of that yeah but the freedom in a big city and then I see it during the day and I'm thinking I walk down the middle of that road you have a certain Freedom everybody has a certain freedom in Tokyo uh because it was safety and because of is it's not the freedom to own a gun and shoot other people if they come into your property a totally different yeah exactly right that's fear fear that's not Fe has nothing to do Freedom it it's the freedom to go where you want when you want and what you just said about girls walking in the middle of the street dark streets in the night that's why I want my daughters to grow up in this country Thomas go lley is best known for African Samurai his L for that book that book has taken him into so many areas of controversy that we were going to talk about that a little bit today and and he said he'd do that but the one that he's doing right now is a brand new book he's come out with gentleman from Japan gentleman from Japan yeah and uh it's about two boys actually too two two boys but we concentrate on the main character 21 years old yeah about 21 years old um at the time when he arrived in England at Queen Elizabeth the first court in 1588 uh it's called a gentleman from Japan and it is a book about history which people never think about the history of early cultural contacts it's just about taking off now as well so um if anybody wants to how long did you WR it uh it's came out two weeks uh three weeks ago May the 21st but when did you finish the book um books take a long time it took about seven years to write and then one year from Finish of the first manuscript to going through the edits and then uh publishing so the books are hard work but they're fun now what about the African Samurai yeah now you've had some controversy with that you were telling me just before this that you have some friends that really love you because of this book and people that hate me because people that hate you what is that about well there's recently a computer game being announced it' be released I believe later on this year it's called Assassin's Creed shadows and it's set in Japan and lots of people have been waiting for years for one of this this franchise Assassin's Creed to have a one set in Japan and the protagonist the main character or one of two main characters in this computer game is yasa the African who served ORD noaga Japan's greatest warlord and fought by his side at his death essentially and Assassin's Creed have um resurrected y to be one of the main characters in their game now some people love this some people hate this and um because I'm the person that originally resurrected Y and did the research into who he really was and where he came from and uh what he did and possibly the possibilities about where he went to what year was this that you did this did you resurrect him uh that book was published 2019 five years ago no one had done it prior to you um he had often been in a fictional character or basis for a fictional character for example the manga Afro Samurai so he's the basis for afro that was before your book yeah all of these mangas and animes used him as a basis for their main characters so they knew he existed yeah he he's he's he's he's well known among but you're the first one to do a full bring bring out bring the man out I was going to say something because back in the 70s when I was here there was a guy that was a teacher he's also Professor he's black professor and he was about everything black cuz he's a little bit older than me okay and he was Pro black he told me do you know one of the most famous Samurai here was African yes and I went really like how much I know about 68 that that he really burst onto the scene in Japan he was the protagonist uh in a book a children's book actually um called um Kos in 1968 1968 yeah it was a children's historical it was one of the precursors to what we call manga uh it was half animated and half book form uh Kos and then in 72 I think it was Endor shinske the very famous author who wrote silence and all sorts of other stuff he wrote a book called Coro uh yes and that's probably the book which your friend was talking about friend was talking about because that I mean anything that Endor wrote was huge uh at the time and it would have just been fresh on his mind well that was the terminology that we were told as African-Americans we came here if Japanese say that to you that's not that's like calling the nword in America Kumo but something that other people I think the younger people don't realize when I came here in 74 they used to have a kumble taai people would get on TV in the summertime to see who could get the darkest okay really and it was called the Japanese cherished it and I would watch that the contradictions it just didn't make sense but it was never as veril as America has made it yeah with England's support but you know so I never felt offended yeah with the Japanese SC because they had no emotions behind it yeah and I looked at the atmology of that word to find out what it actually meant and it's originally from Colombo which is Sri Lanka it's one of the old uh civilizations capital cities of Sri Lanka and Colombo is actually um derived Theology of that word is from Columbo but it's kurumba Ines it came through somehow through the and what does it mean in Sri Lankan no it person no in in Old Japanese it meant somebody from Sri Lanka oh that's what it meant yeah with dark dark skin right okay and therefore uh originally that's what it meant and it was a word of respect for a fellow Buddhist Kingdom it was no disrespect disrespect yes um then in the 20th century it took on a different meaning right and came to as you said never with any but no that's what they said they could say that but they never said it with it never vibrated the way okay it vibrated if someone were to say that in the states or in England you just didn't I don't think the English used it so much but probably not no no no they didn't have to they made sure they they made sure their biggest colony did America so America I let them okay but I never felt that no there was no reason for them and they couldn't they just did not vibrate the same way y there was a time also when there was a movement to Ally with African places like Ethiopia ABIA uh in the 30s there was a a um it was brief but it was that no what's brief the the it was called Alliance of the dark peoples okay and there were many many in Japanese you mean that's how it was translated yeah well the the policy the government policy at the time was the concept of basically allly against the ccas what you call the Caucasian EMP okay so Japan against yeah absolutely and this is doing well this is the 30s when in the buildup to war Japan knew that it couldn't really do it alone fight alone or or couldn't didn't have the the depth and also the perhaps the the moral backbone uh to to make it happen and there were moves which included uh Africa uh abisinia and Ethiopia in particular but also included um bringing hundreds of thousands of Jews to manua especially but also to other territories held by Japan or controlled by Japan as settlers to share their expertise and other things and that was called the fugu plan the Ethiopian plan I don't know if it had a particular name but it was it included marriage alliances between Noble Japanese ladies and Ethiopian Prince uh it was all over the newspapers at the time and it it fizzled out in the um in the during the Italian invasion of abisinia in 36 and um Japan was then concentrating on the war with China from the year after that so it would have been a very interesting New Direction in history should we say Hitler put a stop to all of that I would think after that too because when they saw the direction he was going in they said okay we we'll leave um the people of color alone a lot of the Jews from Europe that got out over the Soviet Union came to Japan um tens and tens of thousands as I understand it and um they settled and were safe I wouldn't say they were comfortable many of them were sent to Shanghai in the ghetto in Shanghai um others were in Manchuria um large community was in cor about 5,000 in cor during the war my grandmother was a refugee from Nazi Germany okay um a christianized um her father was Jewish baptized and her mother was not Jewish German and um they made life really hard they made life I think so my great grandfather was a decorated war hero in the first World War uh for the German Reich um uh uh he fought four years and survived which there can't have been many people in in the battlefield four years in the first world war and survived um and he became a lawyer afterwards um but when the Nazis came he was forbidden from practicing so and forbidden from making money he he had no way of making money in the end he decided to become a pastor and was sent to New York actually um for training in some kind of Evangelical Pastor a training session I'm not sure of the exact details and so he was safe during the War years uh my grandmother and her um siblings and her mother were not smuggled out that's the wrong word but they were they were given special dispensation because they were Christians not Jewish Jews and um they spent the Warriors in England uh too scared to go into the bomb shelters the public bomb shelters because they were German as the German bombs fell down around them uh they they huddled in the garden or wherever to it must have been scary I imagine would have been War at that time or any time I think would be scary yeah the controversy over your book where do it stand right now African Samurai well right now I'm not quite sure I've had some nasty comments on my Facebook page I've decided to take down all my family photos from my Facebook page my own stuff from Japanese you've been getting these nasty comments or would you rather not say actually to be honest with you uh yes a few from Japanese though these the first time ever that I've had anything controversial from Japanese people about yase yase is seen as a hero in Japan and even in the 70s he was a hero and uh he's only got bigger um some of I'm not going to say say what some of these comments are but they're not very nice and um but it it's in in English almost all of these comments or um blog postings or massive amounts of stuff on YouTube um some of them are not necessarily directed at me per se it's the idea it's the idea that's it and I I've decided not to not to give them Credence by by watching but I get reports from some people I've got some beautiful messages on uh Instagram and things from people I don't know saying You must be having a hard time at the moment keep fighting the good fight kind of thing and I'm not fighting any fight you but it's lovely to have people just random Str that's the majority that's the majority of people I think because of the way we we are conditioned as human beings to either fight or flight we like to focus on the negative you know they say entertainers or anything when they're in an audience it could be hundreds of thousands of people the person they will remember is the guy that sat there and and looked like he had a Grimace or something everybody else could be everybody else could be happy smile but there's always this one guy and you'll focus on that the same thing about the internet we'll take that and we'll give energy to the one or two unpleasant comments yeah and we could have thousands of good comments but because we know people won't focus people won't intuitively we know people don't want to hear about all the good news yeah but they would love to hear about that one guy that said you were naughty for putting that in there yeah really really you know but I wouldn't take it for that because most of those people too have a problem it's about them yeah it's never about your your information it's about them and they won't come out and say it in public because they know it wouldn't fwell for them yeah go ahead say that in public let us know who you are y they won't do it yeah personally I think that Yasir was a man and he deserves to be given respect for what he did which was absolutely amazing to come from the other side of the world in difficult circumstances that were not exactly sure what the circumstances were and to rise to the top of another country's culture and be at the side of the greatest ruler of the time at his death fighting at his death loyal to the end it's an amazing story and I think we should give somebody like that the credit they deserve I don't know whether the game Assassin's Creed should have him as the main character or it should have somebody else as main character quite frankly I don't care but you have nothing to do with it nothing to do with it you you see no Royal don't know no was nothing to though my book's starting to sell well again which is nice that's nice so you can get some background on yeah but don't don't attack yase as a man let's me remember this man for who he was and the great things that he did Thomas I think that we're getting closer to that now because we have access to more information and we get it much quicker now and it can be made it can vibrate much louder now than it ever could before so this person which is probably the same person that wrote five or six times under different aliases you might this one person this one person can actually look up through Google and so many other sources and find out wow some similarities between him and or her and this person yeah which we all have we're talking about us human beings so I don't think it's anything to really put any more time and effort in do you have anything outside of a gentleman from Japan that's coming up now that you've completed that book and is starting to get some some traction it's getting some traction and I'm going to dedicate the next few months to keeping that traction going uh once you've got traction on a book it tends to start going on its own you've got to get that traction and nobody else is going to do that for you but that means you have to go out and give um talks about the book that's the biggest thing so where do you going to give these talks do you stand on the corner and shabuya or something with a microphone the end is night come and read my book yeah do you do you do you do you actually go out and solicit podcasts the big thing okay you got this one okay this one maybe you can get our numbers up that would be a nice thing please please I will put this on my uh make you send it everywhere you have to I will do um where was I yeah uh podcast is big huge um some people have approached me some people I've approached at the beginning I approached a few places and then I started to take off as well which is good having the um the Y Story come up is quite convenient because people have contacted me for comments or interviews about that and I said oh look I've got a new book that's right can I appear with that as well oh yeah and so that kind of has brought some traction and the other thing is just sheer hard work writing to newspapers writing to um magazines asking them to feature it 99 times out of 100 you don't get a reply but one time you do get a reply and that's great you go for it and hopefully that snowballs a bit but then the talks thing the live inperson talks the oldfashioned ones if you like they're good because you meet the people that you're talking to and you can be questioned by those in a way you can't do for podcasts you're going to be talking here aren't you I'm talking here next week I think it's next Wednesday this is the Tokyo American Club you all know that yes maybe they don't maybe this is world going around the world yes we're going to get this on we're going to get amazing well that's one reason why I really want to get this out quick because we came together for Marissa Moss's book and that's where I met you you came in on that and then I said I have to have you on thank you because um you're such a pleasant guy it was nice to talk with you and you have a good sense of humor which we haven't shown you because we don't know how people might take it if I think both of us have a very similar sense of humor and the things we may laugh at you may not want to laugh at so all right and I like telling you when I told you I said um and you and you were you were kind enough not to to say anything until I finished I said as an American who had his kids at the British school MH people would ask me why do you have your kids at the British school and you're an American and I said because the English do not think they're Superior to Americans they know they are and you like that you like yeah go there you go there you go there you go that's good it's pleasure being on this uh this podcast this YouTube It's amazing isn't there something nowadays what you can do I remember when I first started you have these big Sony cameras that were huge and it was just difficult and it cost you a fortune to do it now you get your iPhones put them up and you're go worldwide and it is broadcast quality yep they can be it's so interesting it's amazing so interesting yeah before I end the podcast Thomas I always like to ask this question if you could go back in time and meet the younger Thomas okay and give him advice Y what advice would you give him and how old would he be I would probably go back to around my kids age now so early teens or just pre- teen 13 and 11 my kids are and I do two things one i' say don't take it so seriously and the other thing I'd say take it more seriously because there's certain things which you should take more seriously and there's certain things you should take less seriously now what those would be I'd have to I can't think about that right now on the off the top of my head but I would like to be able to do that but the thing is I try and do that to my kids and they ignore me so probably the 13 or the 11y old Tom would also ignore the advice from the future Tom because that's what we do that's what we do thank you so much Thomas thank you for having thank you for being here it's really really been an honor and a pleasure to be here with you and been a pleasure talking with you and listening to your stories I'm telling you I think the whole audience here thank you I want to thank all of you for watching or listening to this podcast and never forget it's all Unown so continue to reach for the stars because you're too blessed to be stressed [Music]