We are pleased to republish “Spanish Tile Journey,” a travel column originally written by our company president, Naoyuki Yamauchi, for The Times Housing Newspaper, a local publication covering housing and lifestyle in Okinawa and part of the Okinawa Times Group.
A Passion for Soccer and Tile
Next to Valencia’s bullring, in Spain’s third-largest city, stands the Estació del Nord train station.
Early one morning, I boarded a train there bound for Vila-real in Castellón Province.
As the train left the city behind, endless rows of orange trees streamed past the window on the right. Beyond them lay the Mediterranean Sea.
After a while, the landscape changed to reddish soil, with trucks traveling back and forth and kicking up clouds of dust.
About an hour later, we arrived in Vila-real.
The Ground Shakes with the Cheers
Vila-real is home to Villarreal CF, one of Spain’s well-known soccer clubs. Japanese national team player Takefusa Kubo also played for the club for a time.
The Castellón region is the heart of Spain’s tile industry, and several tile manufacturers have sponsored the team. Fittingly, the club’s home stadium is called Estadio de la Cerámica—the “Stadium of Ceramics.”
The stadium, with a capacity of around 25,000, has a striking exterior finished with large yellow ceramic tiles.
For Spaniards, soccer is more than just a sport. It is part of everyday life.
Many men love gathering at their local bars, beer in hand, to watch the game together. There is no need for everyone to subscribe to satellite television at home. And when it comes to cheering for their team, the passion is extraordinary.
A few years ago, I went to see Valencia CF play FC Barcelona.
Hundreds of white objects, each about the size of a softball, suddenly came flying through the air, trailing long white streamers before landing on the field.
They were rolls of toilet paper—countless rolls thrown by the fans.
When the cheering reached its peak, a deep boom, boom seemed to shake the entire stadium.
The fans were stomping both feet against the floor in unison.
I was even told that seismic activity can sometimes be detected near the stadium during especially intense matches.
Rabbit Paella
Spaniards are a lot like Okinawans in one respect: family ties are strong, and extended families often spend a great deal of time together.
When the local soccer team has a match, the whole family gathers to cheer them on. When a goal is scored, grandchildren hug their grandparents in celebration. It reminds me of the way families in Okinawa come together to watch high school baseball.
This next story comes from the time my son was training at El Barco, a tile manufacturer in Onda, a town next to Vila-real.
On weekends, his host family—the parents, their daughter, and her boyfriend—would regularly visit the grandparents, who lived in the countryside, and have lunch together.
One weekend, they decided to prepare authentic paella for the young visitor from Japan.
The grandfather brought a live rabbit in from the yard and handed it to my son, expecting him to prepare it.
Having only ever seen rabbits as pets, he froze.
The grandmother calmly took over. With practiced hands, she dispatched the rabbit, drained the blood, and skinned it.
Needless to say, the rabbit later became part of the paella, which everyone ate together with gratitude.
Today, we often talk about teaching children where food comes from. When I was young, however, it was still an ordinary sight for my father to prepare a chicken at home, and for the whole family to share the meal together.
There is a funny follow-up to this story.
When I later told Cristina, a female manager at the same tile manufacturer, what had happened, she was shocked.
“I’ve only ever seen rabbit meat at the supermarket!” she said.
It has now been 27 years since I began importing Spanish tile.
Today, we serve as the exclusive Japanese distributor for eight tile manufacturers.
Over the years, I have made many good friends in Spain. They all have something in common: sincerity, craftsmanship, and a deep passion for making tile.
My encounters with exceptional Spanish tile have also led me to some of the most meaningful friendships in my life.
About the Author
Naoyuki Yamauchi was born in Okinawa City, Okinawa. After studying in the United States, he worked for an American trading company before founding Pantech Corporation, a Spanish tile distributor, in 1995.
He enjoys fishing, music, and collecting jazz records from the 1950s and 1960s.
