In December 2022, we welcomed translator Arthur Reiji Morris to Dragon Hall for a Visible Communities residency. In the piece below, he compares Norwich in winter to how the city felt when he visited in July 2018.

The first time I came to Norwich was in July 2018. I’d flown in from Tokyo for the BCLT Summer School. It was arguably the hottest part of the year and I thought that Norwich would be the perfect getaway from the muggy, stifling summer in the metropolis. Not only that, the Summer School would entail my first forays into literary translation which was a hugely exciting prospect in itself.

Touching down in Norwich, I realised that my dreams of a balmy East Anglian summer were very much misplaced. As I found out later from everyone I complained to about the heat, apparently I had come back just in time for a sweltering heatwave that I was mentally unprepared for. Luckily though, the cooler late afternoons were the idyllic experience I had envisioned, and I value my memories of walking across UEA’s verdant campus just as much as those spent puzzling through the translation workshops.

Norwich is by no means a seaside town, but having spent almost all of my teenage years in Chelmsford, Norwich always had a far-off, end-of-the-world air to it. As I passed through Chelmsford station on the walk to the town centre, it was almost reassuring to know that the announcements would almost inevitably call out the two termini of London Liverpool Street and Norwich. When you’re young, you always view yourself as the centre of the world and Chelmsford always felt like the midpoint between these two points, stuck somewhere between the big city and the countryside. I later learned that Norwich is no way near as rural as I thought and isn’t quite by the sea—you’d have to go to Great Yarmouth or Cromer for that, fortunately each only an hour away.

When I returned to Norwich for my residency in December 2022, Great Yarmouth or Cromer were the farthest things from my mind. Even though I am sure they were covered in crowds back in that sun-soaked heatwave of 2018—with that pre-2020 nonchalant disregard to crowds and personal space that I still can’t believe was normal—my second long-term stay in Norwich was a cold one.

We’re always told to make good first impressions and certainly Norwich’s first impression on me had stuck. Nice weather. Good company. Delicious ice cream. And so, it was walking through the city, covered in fog, that I realised how much of a polar opposite this time was. I walked past The Playhouse Bar in the dark, remembering having drinks there on a long summer evening. I passed through the cathedral grounds and remembered the last time I was there was in shorts and a t-shirt. Now the cobbled streets were coated in frost making the hills more treacherous than they had been before. My stay would coincide with more freak weather as many other places in the UK saw snowfall for the first time that year. My partner sent me a message saying that she had to abandon her car in a nearby pub car park and walk to a friend’s house a few miles away as snow piled up around her. Attached was a video of a group of lads pushing a double decker bus as they skidded on the ice. Yet Norwich stayed defiant, eschewing snow for deep fog and ice-covered streets. Compared to her, the most danger I’d had was trying not to spill my takeaway coffee.

That’s not to say it was a completely lonely fortnight—the lovely team at NCW invited me along to some wonderful events at Dragon Hall, the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Art and Culture, and UEA. But with the purpose of the residency being some quality time with my work it meant for a naturally different experience.

Although my daily walks around Norwich were mostly alone, I was more than content to see another side to this city. One fresh morning, I headed up to Kett’s Heights where there was a small smattering of snow. On another evening, I walked through the beautiful Tunnel of Light after seeing a friend for dinner. It was through these walks that I was reminded that whether it’s midsummer or midwinter, one thing that remains constant is that Norwich has always given me a warm welcome.

Arthur Reiji Morris is a translator of Japanese literature, manga, and video games. Born in London, he graduated from the University of Leeds in 2015, before moving to Tokyo. When he’s not translating, Arthur enjoys writing music and practicing Japanese calligraphy. He returned to the UK in 2019 and is now based in London. He is the translator of Li Kotomi’s Solo Dance (World Editions, 2022).