This is a collective biography—a written portrait of the life stories of five real people I met in a small seaside town in Japan. Each chapter is one life story written in third person, capturing each person’s essence, energy, and voice.

In these pages, you will meet: 

– a spunky 39-year-old Japanese female who has always considered herself unique.

– a kind 25-year-old male digital nomad who is originally from Germany and has traveled the world for years on his own. 

– a wise 43-year-old Japanese male who is an accommodation owner, freelancer, videographer, and surfer. 

– a creative 46-year-old Japanese and Welsh mixed-race male musician and model who is also an established freelancer and local theater owner. 

– a beautiful 28-year-old Japanese female who comes across polished and put-together but has internal struggles she shares that she is hopeful to overcome. 

I wrote this book because… I’m a mixed-race dual national of America and Japan. I grew up between east and west, and at one point, I also long-term traveled by myself with a carry on bag for over three years, visiting over fifty countries during those years. The biggest thing I have learned in my life through those experiences is that we can focus on what separates us, and/or what our similarities are. And although there are unique cultural differences across the world and within each country, deep down, we are all the same—we are human. Someone on the other side of the world may be more similar to us than the person next door, and I believe there is a lot of beauty in that perspective. 

I interviewed each person in-person about their life, and audio-recorded each interview so that I could listen to it over and over as I wrote. My objective was to paint each person’s portrait at a deeper level than we would see if we were to look at a visual portrait, by writing their life story and what is resonant to them. Each person went in depth about their family history, childhood memories, love and relationships, work, hobbies, traumas, fears, perspectives, and hopes and dreams.

I took great care to write each individual portrait, as I felt and saw and heard each person. I tuned into each person’s unique personality and energy, so each chapter has a different feel and reveals completely different thoughts and feelings about life. Each conversation begins with a question about their grandparents and then goes in completely unique directions and touches on different topics. My main focus was to preserve their voice and essence.

 If you enjoy intimate, people-centered stories and being dropped into another place for a while, this book is for you. I hope that you will enjoy the book and connect with and feel the humanity of certain passages that have been purposefully scattered throughout this book. Their stories show something simple and true: even across language and culture, we collectively yearn for the same things —love, meaning, and belonging being just a few. They might be on the other side of the world, but you might just see yourself in them, and recognize some of your life experiences in theirs.