`Do not fail to write down your first impressions as soon as possible" - impressions of tea ceremonies and temple gardens, love hotels and lingering sunsets.
A Galway couple, Jimmy Shaughnessy and his wife, Annemarie Gleeson, may be a mite too busy to record their first few weeks in Japan, but one hopes they will have found time to take some advice from "Paddy", otherwise known as Lafcadio Hearn, the great Irish-Japanese writer.
For Jimmy has been awarded a fellowship on an executive training programme in Hearn's adopted country. He and Annemarie headed for Tokyo after Christmas, where they intend to spend the next two years. Young employees of Irish companies such as Bewleys and the Bank of Ireland have already benefited from the programme, but this is the first time Kennys of Galway has dispatched one of its staff.
And perfect sense it makes. As manager of Kennys' international division, the 26-year-old has been in charge of its Asian market. Developed by Conor Kenny, it now represents 40 per cent of the company's export trade. Jimmy was in the Pacific twice in the last 12 months, and thrice-yearly visits by representatives have been standard since the mid-1990s.
The fact that his wife has been appointed export manager, Japan, is an added boost. While Jimmy is embarking on a 12-month intensive language and business practice course at Sophia University in Tokyo, Annemarie will be contacting booksellers, seeking out new clients and investigating the market there for Irish art.
When the training programme finishes in 2001, they will stay on another six months, working for the bookshop. Jimmy's final six months involves work experience with Japanese companies, and he hopes to spend some time with booksellers.
Jimmy is one of 25 to 30 staff who have transferred to new Kennys premises at Liosban Estate in Galway. This has become the hub of the thriving export business. Book collections are sold to Japanese booksellers by subject - ranging from "childcare to sex to 17th century European history", says Conor Kenny - while there is also a demand for antiquarian and secondhand editions.
Bookbinding has also become a significant moneyspinner. Two major Japanese universities now send their western antiquarian collections to the Galway company for binding and return.
Jimmy has a few ideas up his sleeve which may help to consolidate Kennys' position as one of the largest western booksellers in the region. The couple intend to do a bit of travelling before they return. And after all that sushi and sukiyaki, the buzz of Shinjuku, and the tranquillity of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, Galway's Quay Street won't be quite the same.