Paul Christie

After graduating in economics at University College in London, Paul took up Japanese graduate studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, also in London, in the mid-1980s. He first came to Japan in 1987 and lived between Tokyo and London until 2002.

Paul has a varied career that includes working as an analyst for the Nihon Keizai Shimbun Japan's principal financial newspaper; as managing director of the Japanese subsidiary of a major British company; and as a freelance director and producer in news and documentaries for Japanese television. A yearning for the rural life led him back permanently to Japan in 2002 to a quiet village in Kunisaki, Kyushu in west Japan. Now, when not providing Walk Japan's local tour support and also leading some of them, he is to be found at home enjoying life with his wife and two baby sons, tilling paddy fields, caring for woodlands, building stone walls, baking bread and behind the camera lens recording the life and traditions of Japan. His activities in Kunisaki form part of Walk Japan's Community Project, a long-term project, the centre of which is the refurbishment of an old farmhouse, to help reinvigorate a beautiful but declining rural area.

Paul began leading tours for Walk Japan in in 1998 and was made a partner and managing director of the company in 2004.