Show 924 Monday 22 December
Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.
Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.
Today’s guest is Billeigh. She’s from Melbourne, Australia and she’s currently living here in Niseko. She has a few jobs and one of them is working as a massage therapist at a place called Niseko Massage.
We interviewed her in the room she works in. It’s such a nice little room and it smells so good. I wish we could somehow capture the smell on camera. We could have talked for hours because she has so many interesting stories to tell.
I started out by asking her: How long have you been in Japan?
I came here in March and I stayed for about six weeks. I stayed here in Niseko doing massage and then I went down to Kyoto for a week and to Tokyo for a week. And then I went home for two months. And then I returned to work here over the summer and the summer was really beautiful. And then I went on another holiday to Cuba and I have just returned two weeks ago, to work the winter season.
STICK NEWS
Kia Ora, in Stick News today a 26-year-old Kiwi spammer has been fined 100 thousand dollars.
Last year spamming became illegal in New Zealand. The first person has just been charged under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. The New Zealand Herald reported Lance Atkinson admitted the spamming charges and was sentenced to pay $100,000 and costs of $7666. The other two members of the spam gang have denied the charges. The Internal Affairs' anti-spam compliance unit said the three men were part of a network which sent more than two million spam messages to New Zealand computers last year. The convicted spammer still faces charges in the United States.
And that was Stick News for Monday the 22nd of December.
Kia Ora.
conversations with sarah
#576 What bought you to Niseko?
Step 1: Repeat Sarah’s lines.
Step 2: Read Sarah’s lines and talk to Billeigh.
Sarah What kind of massage do you do?
Billeigh I do mostly shiatsu. Ah, I’ve been working with shiatsu for about five years now. But I started off just working with natural intuitive massage and I’ve also done Thai massage and Tibetan massage. So I blend all types of massage in together.
Sarah What is shiatsu?
Billeigh Shiatsu is Japanese massage. It’s finger pressure. So we use pressure points, we use the thumbs, we use the elbows, ah, all fingers, forearms. Some people even use their feet. But it’s normally performed on the ground, on the floor, on a futon. But in this studio, we work on a bed and that works well, as well. I mix it with oil massage. Normally shiatsu should just be strictly with clothes on and you work over top of the clothes, but … most, most clients that come here, they want a full body oil massage. So I blend all different types of massage, different styles of massage.
Sarah How long have you been doing massage?
Billeigh Well, in 1997, I went to Israel and I had my wallet stolen and I had no money.
So I went for a walk along the beach. And I thought, “These people might need a beach massage”. So I went up to somebody and I said, “I’m offering massage, would you like a back, shoulder, head, neck massage here on the beach?”. And he said, “Yes”. And then more people who were at the beach saw that I was giving a massage. And they said, “How much? Can I be next?”. And they were very excited. So I started massaging like that. And I made a lot of money in the first week. That continued to pay for my travel. I then went to Jordan and Egypt. And then I met another girl who then paid for my flight to go back with her to England. And then I continued to do it in England and went to Edinburgh and just worked on the street, in festivals. Just put my sleeping bag and a sarong out and, and people would come and we would do it for donation. And it just feels like a natural thing for me. My hands, I looked down at my hands about, maybe six or seven years ago, and thought, “What am I going to do with my life?”. And it was there, I have … this natural talent.
Sarah What brought you to Niseko? Do you snowboard?
Billeigh I do snowboard, yeah, but, ah, the main reason why I came here was because I was in India and I wanted to go to Pakistan and there were problems with … political problems. So … and I felt not to go there any more. I looked in my passport and I had a lady’s card, who … her a business card, and I had massaged her about three years previous. And I emailed her, I knew she was working here in Hokkaido, in Niseko. And she said, “Yes, there’s work here, come.” So I booked an aeroplane … flight from India. And I arrived here and started working straight away. I met my boss and he welcomed me into the village. And I love it here. I’d heard so much about Hokkaido and heard that it was just one of the most beautiful places in the world so I’m really, really grateful to be here.
Sarah How did you learn Spanish?
Billeigh In the year 2000, I really desperately wanted to go to South America. And you can’t go to South America without learning Spanish so I went to a language school and I studied about eight lessons only – just basic Spanish. And then I went there and I just had to learn it by speaking. So when I speak Spanish, people who want to understand me, will understand me. But people who I don’t need to speak with, they won’t understand me, and that’s OK, because I don’t need to speak with them. But it’s, it’s great, it’s really nice, speaking Spanish, I really enjoy speaking another language.
links
today's news
also here
news from when they were charged, back in October
today's STICK NEWS pictures
music
show start
artist: Boom Tschak
album: Indietronic CCBit.
track: More Chocolate, Please
from: Former Yugoslavia
MySpace
cws start
artist: Wolfgang S.
album: Indietronic CCBit.
track: Dynamite
from: Belgrade, Serbia, Former Yugoslavia
artist site
MySpace
qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack2
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site
qa bgm
artist: Kevin MacLeod
track: Silent Night
artist site
YouTube channel
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