Takaatsu Nishimura　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

 I have the following four colleagues who graduated in the same year with me:

Shun Itokawa, Yasumi Ogaki, Minoru Nakano and Shigeo Shichida.

I went to Athens, Greece in 1972 to teach Karate. I taught Karate there for three years and returned to Japan for a short period. Then I went to Egypt. After living in Egypt for a brief period. I arrived in Melbourne, Australia in 1981 and have been living here since.

Australia is 23 times as big as Japan, but its population is only 1/7 that of Japan. Once you go out of the suburbs of Melbourne, you can see Australia is sparsely populated. The seasons in Australia are opposite to Japan’s seasons. It took me about 10 years to feel natural that Christmas and New Year were in hot summer.

I have four children. They are all grown-up and have left home. My Australian wife and I now live on our own.

I have been teaching Karate since my arrival in Australia in 1981. In 2010 there was a change in the structure of the Japan Karate Association in Australia. In October 2010 we established the Japan Karate Association (Australia) Inc. Currently we have 20 branches with 700 members.

JKA Australia Inc. has the following website. Please visit our website.

www.jkaaustralia.com.au

In my younger days I was quite happy not eating rice, but now rice is my main staple and I prefer fish to meat. I also have started enjoying Sake more than before. It makes me realise that I am Japanese after all!