is an educator and celebrity

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

 in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. His full name is Anton Wicky Ampalavanar. He was born in Ceylon

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

 and went to Japan in 1961 as a Mombusho

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan)

The , also known as MEXT or Monkashō, is one of the ministries of the Japanese government.The Meiji government created the first Ministry of Education in 1871....

 scholar. In 1969 he earned a doctorate from the University of Tokyo

University of Tokyo

, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...

. His teaching career has included Ohu

Ohu University

is a private university in Kōriyama, Fukushima, Japan, founded in 1972....

 and Reitaku

Reitaku University

is a private university known as Reitaku in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The origin of Reitaku University is Moralogy School which was launched in 1935 and Reitaku University was established in 1950.-Department:College of Foreign Languages...

 Universities.

He began his Nippon Television

Nippon Television

is a television network based in the Shiodome area of Minato, Tokyo, Japan and is controlled by the Yomiuri Shimbun publishing company. Broadcasting terrestrially across Japan, the network is commonly known as , contracted to , and abbreviated as "NTV" or "AX".-Offices:*The Headquarters : 6-1,...

 show "Wicky-san's One-point English Conversation

Eikaiwa

or often shortened to , are English conversation schools, usually privately operated, in Japan. It is a combination of the word and.Although the Japanese public education system mandates that English be taught as part of the curriculum from fifth grade, the focus is generally on English grammar...

" in 1979. It ran for fifteen years. The show began again in 2007.

Since 2006, Wicky has appeared in commercials for Yellow Hat, a chain of automotive-supply retail stores.

External links

• ウィッキーさんのホームページ (Wicky-san's Home Page)