2017.02.12
It may be a bit late to explain why this blog is called Buatsui Soup. My excuse is that I doubt many people are wondering about it. Nevertheless, I worry that it’s rude to think up a cryptic title when there’s no way anyone could work out the meaning.
Firstly, calling soup “buatsui” is one of several mistakes I used to make in Japanese at first – because I thought buatsui (thick) was the opposite of usui (thin). It’s quite childish but I find this sort of mistake amusing and still occasionally deliberately drop this sort of pigeon Japanese into conversation (along with atsui mizu, samui koucha etc.)
Secondly, when we were discussing what this blog would be “about” the answer was that it wouldn’t exactly be about anything in particular. It’s not about Japan; it’s not about the UK; it’s not about football; it’s not about something-interesting-that-happened-to-me-on-the-way-to-the-shops. It’s about any of those things, possibly a mixture of those things, and possibly about something else.
I thought it was a bit like soup in that soup “is” whatever you put into it. Onion soup and tomato soup aren’t the same thing but they are still soup.
I hope that makes sense... even while I know it’s rather nonsensical.
1970年、ロンドン東部のロムフォード生まれ。オックスフォード大学で古代史と近代史を専攻。92年来日し、『ニューズウィーク日本版』記者、英紙『デイリーテレグラフ』東京特派員を経て、フリージャーナリストに。著書に『「ニッポン社会」入門』、『新「ニッポン社会」入門』、『驚きの英国史』、『マインド・ザ・ギャップ！ 日本とイギリスの＜すきま＞』など。最新刊は『なぜオックスフォードが世界一の大学なのか』（小社刊）