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I grew up in Japan. It's my first memories of life are Japan.

I took Japanese in high school. I'm Chinese, though, and I just fell in love with the language and the culture.

As I grew up, I was continually to suffer hardships in different realms of life - in my family, in my relationship to Japanese society and in my way of living at large in the latter half of the twentieth century.

After college, I wanted to learned about myself as an American, so I left the United States and went to Japan.

I'm just very obsessed with Japanese stuff in general.

I know just enough Japanese to get by if I get lost and greet an audience properly, just from having a lot of Japanese friends and being there over the years.

I was fortunate to live for 3 years in another country, and although we lived in an American compound, still as a young adolescent I did venture into the world of the Japanese with great interest and enjoyment. But many Americans never left that safe and familiar life among their own people.

I lived in Japan when I was younger for about two years. I spent my time equally between religiously studying Aikido in Shinjuku by day and hard partying in Shibuya and Roppongi by night.

It is hard to be an individual in Japan.