Tatami Days: Getting a Life in Japan

Guest, Michael: - Son of a Hong Kong WW2 refugee father and Scottish-Australian mother, Michael Guest was born in 1954 in the coal mining town of Lithgow, Australia. He lived, worked and studied in Sydney and the south coast of NSW, taking his PhD in modern literature (Samuel Beckett) at the University of Sydney. He moved to Japan in 1991 to teach English at business school in Nagoya, before accepting a position at Shizuoka University, where he would become a full Professor in media and cultural studies and a founding member of Japan's first national faculty and graduate school of informatics. He published many academic and media articles, some of which have appeared in The Australian newspaper, Australian Book Review, Australian Society, Journal of Beckett Studies, and Education about Asia. Michael recorded broadcasts as a freelance researcher and commentator on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio National and co-edited the book Essentially Oriental: R.H. Blyth Selection (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1994), alongside Kuniyoshi Munakata, Leader of the Noh Shakespeare Company of Japan. He lectured at prominent international conferences in Australia, Japan, the United States, Germany, Thailand and Taiwan on literature, theory, culture and education. During his time in Japan he contributed as an organiser of several cultural and educational exchange events and programs. H retired from his professorship and relocated to Australia in 2006, where he worked as a university lecturer.