Last Tuesday Marie-Rose Ishiguro was at odds with her handbag. Dressed in a bright red suit, with gold jewelry and matching buttons, she looked every inch the power executive. But her battered brown leather bag -- more a holdall really, handles secured with string and spilling papers, books and clothes -- gave the game away: really she's an author on the run.

"Two p.m. I meet Sankei Shimbun," she began to rattle off at speed, thrusting three red roses into my arms. (The first time I've ever allowed myself to be bribed!) "Tonight, with my sister, I'm due at a reception at the Swedish Embassy. Tomorrow I meet another Japanese newspaper. Thursday, there's a TV interview in Shizuoka. Then back to Kansai. After 10 days of this, I'll be glad to get home."

The jaunt was to publicize her latest book, "Chotto O-sekkai Desu Ga" ("Pardon My Meddling, But . . ."), written in response to the volunteer spirit generated by the Kobe earthquake, and published by Jiji Press on the last day of 1999. "One critic compared me to Takakura Ken, adored because he's reserved and rarely expresses himself. I'm popular for the opposite reason: open, easygoing, expressing myself all the time."

Basically Marie-Rose writes two types of books: observations of Japanese culture from her perspective as a Lebanese married to a Japanese for nearly 28 years; and the same but from a Christian cultural viewpoint. But, as she was keen to point out, she's no missionary. Yes, she's Christian -- 50 percent of Lebanese are! But what interests most is explaining how English is permeated with Christian influences. Indeed, she will go so far to say that no one can properly understand English without understanding Christian history and culture.

"Goodbye," she gave as an example, "is from 'May God be with you.' When someone sneezes, what do we say? 'God bless you!' " There are so many expressions in everyday use: God knows! In God we trust! God save the queen! Good God! God willing! God be with you! So the list goes on . . ."

She was raised in Beirut in a Christian family that believed in getting involved in other people's problems. (Though she chose not to help me eat my lunchtime sandwich, because she was fasting for Lent.) "My parents loved people. They always wanted to help. If my mother saw a couple arguing, she would wade in and make them reconcile their differences."

This is the complete opposite of Japan, where everyone stands back and no one gets involved. Ishiguro believes this is why Japanese feel so terribly alone. "Look at the man who stabbed people in Ikebukuro, or the woman accused of killing a neighbor's child. These were people in trouble, but who could they turn to for help? Who was willing to reach out to help them?"

Marie-Rose's grandfather was just that: very grand! A member of the Iraqi royal family, he left to settle in Lebanon because of his faith. "Once there was a lot of money. He used to talk about how under every chandelier there was a pile of gold." While grandpa was a businessman and the mayor of Beirut for 20 years, her father chose to surround himself with books and music, and his family with hugs and kisses. "He was a librarian at the Jesuit University. My mother was the practical one."

After studying, Marie-Rose herself became quite grand. She tutored princes of Kuwait and Qatar, experiencing palace life at first hand. "I had a Cadillac, my own chauffeur, but nothing prepared me for my first experience of traveling up an escalator in Osaka, with people bowing as if I really was royalty."

She met her husband, Michikane, (she calls him Ken, he calls her Mimo) in 1970, when he was working for a bank in Beirut. While never hesitating in her feelings for him ("he's perfect, only after God"), her family came first. Even after his elder brother came on behalf of the Ishiguro family to spy on her, and approved, it was unthinkable to leave home.

When Ken returned to Japan, oh the tears! "My life stopped, yet still I couldn't go." Finally, providence intervened: "God hijacked me!" Invited to visit Kansai in 1972, she might not have accepted but for an American couple, to whom she was teaching French. Coming to Yokohama via Hong Kong, "they scooped me up and brought me along." She married in '73.

Settling in Hyogo's Ashiya, she was never home long, because after Ken took over his father's fruit import business, every time he traveled, he took Mimo along. "That's how I came to research juvenile delinquency in the U.S., and eventually write other books on subjects like body piercing and 'black' eyes." (Genetic, not the battered kind.)

One thing that kept her happy and here was choice. "Ken always said if ever I wanted to leave Japan, we'd just pack and go. Also I'm a doer; I busied myself teaching French and Arabic, also Lebanese culture. An Asahi TV director once said, 'You're like a cultural ambassador.' "

It was after her father died, and she was clearing his desk in Beirut, that she had the idea to compile the letters he had written her over the years into a book. "Chichi no Kokoro -- Musume e no Tegami" ("A Father's Heart -- Letters to His Daughter"), published in 1985, won a Love and Peace Award from Chuo Shuppan. She still gets appreciative letters from readers; one student took it on a trip to Nepal and read it every day.

"Lebanon no Sugi to Sakura" ("Lebanon's Cedar and Cherry Trees") compared the two cultures in terms of customs. "As a guest speaker, I would hold up all the stuff advertising porno and telephone clubs from on top of my hotel room TV, and tell audiences, 'You don't find this kind of thing in other countries.' "

Her first major success was with Kodansha's "Kiristo-kyo Bunka no Joshiki" ("Christian Culture's Common Sense"). Sold out in 20 days, it was subsequently reprinted 10 times. At one point, Marie-Rose Ishiguro ranked sixth and eighth in the book trade's list of best-selling titles. "I would have gone higher but for stores running out of copies." Since then she has not been able to write fast enough.

She has taken part in a Discovery Channel symposium. Appeared many times on television. Is delighted that her latest books are now available in Braille. And is thrilled that from next month, students will be reading excerpts from her writings in government-approved textbooks.

She was looking forward to writing time before her term starts April 10. (She teaches at private and national universities in Kansai.) "Kodansha and Jiji must be happy, because I'm commissioned to write three more books, on Christian culture, education and Christianity, and my life in relationship to Christianity. Oh, and Ken and I are starring in a 'manga.' "

This comic book will tell the story of their meeting and life together. "The editor was so excited when I told him about arriving here. I was worried I wouldn't recognize Ken among the sea of ants I imagined Japan to be. But he was waiting on a balcony with a huge bouquet, which he threw to me, bellowing 'Mimo!' Then I had to try and explain the flowers to customs without a word of Japanese."

She doesn't go to Lebanon often these days. Since her sister came for a holiday, and is now an Umewaka (the famed Noh family), with two children, Marie-Rose's mother is a frequent visitor. "My brother married a Scot, and they live in London. My other sister's a photographer in Paris."

Many major Japanese publications, including Nihon Keizai Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun, have reviewed her latest book. "Volunteerism is fine, but people were lining up for water without talking to neighbors or even saying thank you. There were no loving gestures of comfort. Why does it take courage to smile?"

In Japan, she says, service rules ahead of humanity. Yet we are all one family. "If I see a mother struggling with a pushchair, I help. It's beautiful to do these things. You know the quotation 'Do unto others as you would (have) others do unto you'? In Japan, it runs, 'Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you.' "

Interview over, I made my way back to the station. Accosted by a bemused Japanese housewife on a bike, I turned to see Marie-Rose in hot pursuit, suit and hair awry and bag overflowing: "Make it positive, this is all about love!" she gasped.

I'd already got the message.