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Ronin4hire (Offline)
Busier Than Shinjuku Station
 
Posts: 2,353
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: ウェリントン、ニュジランド
08-25-2008, 06:23 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by yuujirou View Post
A personal story x]

During my 6th grade year, I had begun developing a mild interest in Japanese culture. During my 7th grade year, I began studying bits and pieces of Japanese. I started by picking words out of a dictionary. It wasn't until 8th grade that I actually started studying the grammar and other aspects of the language. I continued this on and off until 9th grade when I stopped almost completely. Anyway, all that studying earned me knowledge the equivalent of a J2 student.
The summer of my senior year of high school, my Dad hooked me up with a local sushi-ya in Houston (Miyako for the Houstonians in this forum x]). Thus beginning my career a sushi chef. Eventually, I moved from the back of the kitchen too the front of the house working at the bar. The sushi-ya, being owned by a Chinese and being aimed towards American clientele, naturally attracted very few Japanese. So I started noting all the Japanese that visited and chatted with them in my broken Japanese. Eventually, the son of my current boss dropped by Miyako for a few drinks. I started talking too him and after a bit he noted that he was going too Japan for a few months and that his parents might need a little help running the bar since his dad was the only chef working there. I took him up on it and paid the sushi-ya a visit.
The sushi-ya, Teppay (google it), is a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that is run by a Japanese family with a classically trained chef. Anyway, they hired me and now I'm an apprentice under THE best Itamae in Houston, Texas.

*The main reason they hired me was because I speak some Japanese*
x]

Point of Story:

With a little bit of luck, a bit of perseverance, and just the right connections you can go quite a ways with your Japanese; I sure did.
lol x]




^---Yes, that's my success story, lol xD.... in progress
Damn that's a cool story!
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