From 1992 to 1994, the author was a visiting professor at the Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Administration (Nagoya Shoka Daigaku), a private 4-year coeducational university located on the grounds of a modern campus on the outskirts of Nagoya. It is the only university for commerce and business administration in the area and has approximately 3,000 students. As a visiting professor, the author was assigned to teach courses in communication skills. It was his duty to make English a "living language." English was deemed important for global business. Making it interesting was a challenge, because high school rote learning experiences left students hating English. All in all, his tenure in Japan provided him with an interesting but very different rich cross-cultural experience that he values to this day, in spite of the rigid expectations emanating from the president's office. Teachers new to Japan should not expect universities, whether private or public, to always conform to their expectations.