In 1976 I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Japan Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and in September of that year I set off for Japan to spend 18 months at Kyoto University, where I was attached to the Humanities Research Institute. I had previously spent two months in Tokyo in 1970 and a year in Tokyo from 1972 to 1973, so my first problem in Kyoto was getting used to Kansai-ben, for I discovered that lectures and seminars at Kyoto University were routinely conducted in Kansai-ben. In those days there were no useful English-language handbooks for Kansai-ben, so I had to learn by ear.

My doctoral dissertation for the University of Oxford was on the links between the novels of Ozaki Kōyō and Edo fiction, so I was mostly using the collections of the Faculty of Letters and the Central Library. I did manage to get my dissertation finished, typing up the chapters as I went. I had to rewrite one of the chapters, as I left it in my briefcase on the Shinkansen while I went to the restaurant car. When I got back the briefcase was gone! It was not a disaster, but the consequences were amusing. I went to report the theft at the police station at Kyoto Station: the police officer on duty seemed uninterested - he had his feet on his desk and his tie was undone - until he leant that I was at Kyoto University. He suddenly sat up, straightened his tie, bowed and promised to look into the matter right way. I did get my briefcase back eventually but without the missing chapter.

For me those 18 months in Kyoto were formative: I got used to Kansai-ben and to how Japanese universities and libraries work, I made good friends with whom I am still in touch, and, crucially, I got launched on my academic career, which subsequently took me to the University of Tasmania, Kyoto University again (but this time as an associate professor) and finally the University of Cambridge. Obviously I owe the Japan Foundation a lot: without that Fellowship I would have been unable to spend such a long and productive time in Japan, and I remain deeply grateful.

I know that many have benefitted from the Foundation’s generosity over the years and I hope fervently the future generations of young scholars working on Japan will be able to enjoy the opportunities that I was enabled to take advantage of. In 1992 Professor Hayashi Nozomu and I were awarded a Japan Foundation Special Prize in respect of our joint work on a complete catalogue of the Aston, Satow and von Siebold collections in Cambridge University Library. At the presentation ceremony in Tokyo, we caused some confusion: Hayashi spoke in English and I in Japanese! We also had the honour of being presented to the Emperor and Empress, who kindly expressed interest when we showed them the entry in our catalogue recording a substantial gift to the Library made by Emperor Shōwa when he visited Cambridge in 1921 as Crown Prince.

Peter Kornicki

(Original text in English)

Awards and Special Prizes: Recipients List 1973 - 1995