After Missed Meeting at Disneyland ...

Philip & Chiemi

Meet Philip, a New Zealander who first came to Japan to work and study in 1990. “At the end of a season working at a pension at Kurumayama ski resort in Nagano – actually the day before I went to start working at Tokyo Disneyland – my foreign coworkers and I all went to a party at friend’s house in Suwa,” he recalls.

Chiemi, who was working at an English school, was also there, and the pair started chatting, and kept chatting well into the night. “She gave me her contact information, but as this was in the days before e-mail, she had no way to contact me until I found a place to settle down,” Philip says. While he didn’t call Chiemi for a couple of weeks, little did he know just how much he had entranced her. She had actually gone all the way to Disneyland from Nagano to search for him.

“Unfortunately, I was backstage so she didn’t find me,” Philip says. “Then, entirely by coincidence, I called her the next day and I was blown away to hear she had come all the way to Disneyland for that purpose!” he exclaims. The couple’s relationship then began to blossom.

Looking back over some of the bigger issues they have faced since their marriage in 1997, Philip recalls when he and Chiemi started their own English school. “That was a challenge as is any business, but the biggest challenges have been trying to balance work and family,” says Philip, who is now a busy father of two.

“This has meant having a baby bed in the office, taking turns working while the other looks after the kids, and other baby-related chores. In one case, 10 days after our second child was born, Chiemi and I were called in to give a presentation for an English course at a company, which involved heavy corseting on her part to fit into her business suit.”

The other main challenge was making ends meet. “Although we have managed to expand our school to 3 locations and hire 12 staff, I don’t think anyone expected the recession to go on for 14+ years, and especially since 9/11 the market has been very tough. However, it has been a useful experience in terms of learning the importance of trying to stay positive, being innovative and flexible.”

On the flipside, they say the high points have been the birth of their two children, and the realization of a dream in 2006 when the couple managed to build their own house overlooking beautiful Lake Suwa. “Planning and deciding everything together was certainly taxing at times, but the sense of achievement was wonderful, and it has certainly helped stress levels,” Chiemi says.