ABOUT
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Purpose-driven explorations in Cambodia, Japan, China, Israel, Kenya, Madagascar, and beyond, combined with over 10 months and 10 new countries of remote working fuel my curiosity and continued people + planet education.
Connecting through umeboshi
I see environmentalism and climate action as a tool. In fact, a pillar to developing healthier and happier communities, businesses, products, supply chains, and more.
But why do I care so much?
In my work and travels over the last ten years, I continue to see example after example domestically and abroad of mindful people and planet work being a tool to facilitate real long-lasting change and uplift communities, their experiences, and expertise for impact that is sustainable in the fullest sense. Environmental design, inclusion, culture and love for the native, indigenous, minority, poor, young, and old perspectives are paramount.
After all, that is my personal story of growing up bi-racial in a bi-cultural house where I spent key childhood moments in Japan and Ohio in connection with people and the planet.
Some of my favorite memories as a kid were outside in the garden pickling ume (Japanese plums) to make umeboshi with my baba, hiking the mountains behind our -
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house near Mt. Fuji with my Jiji, or catching fireflies in the woods in the thick humid summer air in Ohio. They all showed me the beauty of slowing down and connecting with others and nature.
Some of my most painful memories also come from being bi-racial and different. As a fifth grader, I remember bringing a bento lunch to American school that my mom carefully made, and then classmates saying that my bento lunch smelled “bad” and looked “weird” because of the “black stuff,” the nori seaweed and pickled umeboshi.
They thought my food and I were weird because I didn’t have the same sandwich as them but rice, umeboshi, and fish. I felt insecure and other than. As I’ve grown though I realize that my different bento lunch is actually a superpower and a connection to so many others on the outside.
I learned from an early age that the world was much bigger than what my classmates and society perceived as “normal.”
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I learned from an early age that the world was much bigger than what my classmates and society perceived as “normal.” Japanese pickled plum, umeboshi, is different in the US but normal in Japan. With this lesson and feeling different hardwired into my DNA led me to find comfort in the uncomfortable. It drove me to the outsider and to seek, care, and embrace otherness, the people and experiences that are much different than mine. It gifted me curiosity.
My passion for connecting with different people and the planet has led me to many in-field and hands-in-the-dirt experiences that I’m thankful for and would never trade. It’s led me to connect and volunteer work with the Gangsta Gardener, Ron Finley, in South Central LA fighting for food sovereignty in city food deserts to working on a fourth-generation “yon-sei” Japanese American farm that’s one of the last remaining in Southern California. It’s led me to help build a farmer training center for agroecology in Southern Haiti to work in rice, mochi, and potato farms in Yamagata and Hokkaido, Japan. So cheers to umeboshi, curiosity, and connection!
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WHAT I DO
I am a nature activist, food systems educator (and apprentice, touring farms and markets whenever possible), multicultural coach (teaching classes in China to the inner city of Los Angeles), and curious problem-solver. I do actually enjoy long walks on the beach, but I also enjoy long walks through the forests in Brazil, the deserts of Peru, the rice fields of Japan, the aquaponic gardens of Southern California, banana patches in Cambodia, and the street markets of Thailand. All places I’ve been fortunate to learn and experience.
Lastly, I am a seasoned cultural and human connector. Some say “relationship marketer” with unique global experiences and perspectives equipped from a childhood of being a half-Japanese kid with half his foot in Midwest America and the other half in Japan.
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WORDS INSPIRE
“There is an inescapable kinship between farming and art, for farming depends as much on character, devotion, imagination, and the sense of structure, as on knowledge. It is a practical art.
... By farming we enact our fundamental connection with energy and matter, light and darkness.
...The word agriculture, after all, does not mean ‘agriscience,’ much less ‘agribusiness.’ It means ‘cultivation of land.’”
— Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America
“Do you hear me? Do you feel me? We gon’ be alright.
Uh, and when I wake up
I recognize you’re looking at me for the pay cut. ”
— Kendrick Lamar, Alright
“Great art opens a conversation rather than closing it.”
— Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
May God bless you with discomfort...
at easy answers, hard hearts,
half-truths, and superficial relationships.
May God bless you so that you may live
from deep within your heart
where God’s Spirit dwells.
May God bless you with anger...
at injustice, oppression,
and exploitation of people.
May God bless you so that you may
work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears...
to shed for those who suffer from pain,
rejection, starvation and war.
May God bless you so that you
may reach out your hand
to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with
enough foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference
in this world, in your neighborhood,
so that you will courageously try
what you don’t think you can do, but,
in Jesus Christ you’ll have all the strength necessary.”
— A Franciscan Blessing
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
— Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
fig. 01 — Photo documentation work from a rice and mochi farm in Yamagata, Japan.
fig. 02 — BTS from reforestation documentation and production work in Madagascar.
fig. 03 — Photo documentation of my baba harvesting Japanese plums in their home garden for making umeboshi, my favorite pickled plums.
fig. 04 — Photo documentation of my jiji at 86 years old climbing high in the plum tree in his home garden to make pickled plum.
fig. 05 — Creative video storytelling project with cinematographer, Trevor Wentt.
fig. 06 — Photo documentation from a farm in Hokkaido, Japan during the broccoli harvest.
fig. 07 — Photo documentation of picking out the juiciest corn cobs from the corn farm in Cuyahoga Falls, OH.