My name is Simon Yates, I’m from the UK. I came to Japan straight out of university at the age of 23 and went to Japan thinking it would be a stopgap for one or two years. That was 27 years ago, and I’ve been here in Kansai ever since. In my final year at university, I actually applied and didn’t get into the JET Programme and ended up coming over here with NOVA when it was still Japan’s biggest chain of private language schools. I worked in the branches and in the main office for a total of 14 years until the initial incarnation of the company went bankrupt. These days, I’m a Business English trainer at a multinational chemical company in Osaka.
COMMUNITY H E R O E S SPOTLIGHT
Simon Yates (Osaka) 72
WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN YOUR COMMUNITY?
Over the last few months, I’ve been producing a daily English-language summary of Japan’s COVID-19 related news, which I post to my timeline and share with the Covid19 Japan Discussion Group on Facebook. It’s a quick read with screenshots of headlines, official infection numbers, and other important details mostly taken from the morning’s NHK TV bulletin. It brings people up to speed with what’s going on and gives them an idea of what Japanese people are hearing from their mainstream media. My process for this is pretty rudimentary. I usually get up
