Japanese MD at Burnley-based engineering firm Futaba-Tenneco says farewell to East Lancashire

He will be replaced by the first non-Japanese managing director of engineering firm Futaba-Tenneco.

Mr Nagasaki told TYRONE MARSHALL about his love of the area and his East Lancashire adventure.

THE beauty of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and full English breakfasts are just some of the things that Yutaka Nagasaki will miss when he returns home.

The 62-year-old has spent the last decade living in Haslingden, Burnley and Padiham and immersing himself in East Lancashire, while fulfilling the role of managing director at Burnley-based Futaba-Tenneco.

He arrived in the summer of 2000 to take on the role at the Japanese car parts firm and said he was attracted to the role because it offered him a challenge.

On December 27 he will return to his home town of Nagoya and his wife and daughter.

Mr Nagasaki said that on his first visit to the town, in July 2000, he was ‘very surprised at the old style buildings’.

That inspired him to learn about Lancashire history and he now proudly declares that he knows more about the area than most of his local colleagues.

He said: “I only knew a bit about London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, and I heard about Liverpool and the Beatles.

“I read a lot about the history of Burnley and this area and learnt about Lancashire being the red rose and Yorkshire the white rose. Lancashire is cotton and Yorkshire is wool.

“I read the books about English history, I know more about English history than a lot of people in England now.”

When Mr Nagasaki arrived he faced a battle with the language, having never learnt English, but said his colleagues helped to ease him.

“Normally all Japanese people learn English in high school,” he said.

“But in my generation it was just this is a pen and this is a pencil.

“When you are over 50 it is very difficult to learn a foreign language. Reading and writing wasn’t too bad but the problem was hearing it and speaking it.”

Mr Nagasaki describes himself as a “typical Japanese businessman.”

He joined Futaba at the age of 22 after finishing education in 1972 and has stayed with the company all his life, as he said many Japanese people do.

He said one thing he noticed when he ventured out on his first walk in Padiham was the number dogs without leads.

“I was shocked at how many dogs there are with no leads,” he said.

“The first time I walked in Haslingden I saw a dog without a lead that was my size, I stopped and tried to sneak past.

“When walking along the canalside nearly all the dogs are very friendly, but some areas are muddy and the dogs are very friendly and jump up and leave footprints on your clothes.”

He used to see his family once a year, for anywhere between two weeks and a month, but his wife learnt English as quickly as he did thanks to an English neighbour in their suburban district back home.

But living in a neighbourhood in the UK was very different from living in a Japanese neighbourhood.

Mr Nagasaki said: “All my neighbours have been very kind. I liked to walk by the canal and people used to always say hello.

“People say good morning, goodbye, see you, the greetings are much better than in Japan.

“Everybody was very good and very kind, people are a lot friendlier than in Japan to each other.”

His real passion was walking, and while he would spend his evenings working, he would be spend his weekends walking.

In his time here he walked the length of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal several times. He would get a train in the morning to a stretch he wanted to walk and then a train back home after.

The longest stretch he walked in one go was 29 miles.

During his time in the UK he visited several pubs in the area, but could never get to grips with pub culture here. He did, however, enjoy the odd glass of Bells whisky in the evenings.

It was with British food that he really immersed himself though, and the full English breakfast.

“I love an English breakfast,” he said.

“Many Japanese people told me that the English food is not so good but I don’t see that, I think it is good. My wife loves fish and chips; it’s her favourite meal here. I couldn’t eat the black pudding though, it was too difficult.”

Mr Nagasaki said that he had also struggled at first to adapt to the different business practices in the UK to Japan.

He said: “English culture to Japanese culture in business with the customer is very different. If the customer says something in Japan we say yes and then talk about it, but in England they want to talk about it first before saying yes. These differences would give me a headache.

“Employees in Japanese work in the evenings or on Saturday and Sunday, it doesn’t matter, but in the UK it is very important to get home as well.

“The Japanese live to work yet the English work to live. That is a big difference.”

Mr Nagasaki can’t wait to get back home and see his family now, but he will fondly remember his time in East Lancashire, and will always have a soft spot for the Clarets, thanks to his Burnley FC-supporting work colleagues.