Javier García Wong-Kit
@JaviernestoJavier García Wong-Kit is a journalist, professor, and director of Otros Tiempos magazine. Author of Tentaciones narrativas (Redactum, 2014) and De mis cuarenta (ebook, 2021), he writes for Kaikan, the magazine of the Japanese Peruvian Association.
Updated April 2022
Stories from This Author
Jaime Ajito: Ambassador of Nikkei Cuisine
April 15, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
If cuisine is a way to travel around the world, Peruvian chef Jaime Ajito has been an ambassador of Nikkei cuisine on two continents. Nikkei cuisine is what he learned at home and culinary school after studying graphic design and marketing and working as a dental technician, with his own laboratory. He’s also spent time as a dekasegi in Japan. Today he lives in Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where these days you …
Nikkeis inspired by video games
March 16, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Technology has been the reason for great advances in humanity and, in recent years, digital tools have become an engine of change in many areas. This inspiring capacity has infected many people for several decades, including some Nikkei who have developed their careers based on these advances, which today include smartphones, virtual stores and video games, among other useful and revolutionary products. In Peru, the first news of technological inventions came through the press, TV and radio, but, since the …
The sweet side of Peruvian Nikkei cuisine
Feb. 21, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
It can be said that the popularity of Peruvian Nikkei cuisine is now indisputable. From makis and their fusions with Creole ingredients, to other preparations that have been gaining ground with restaurants and events in the Peruvian-Japanese community (in the former, ramen soups have become known and in the latter, obento have been introduced), Nikkei cuisine dishes are increasingly on the lips of more Peruvians and tourists. In recent years, motivated by reinvention, which drove many Nikkei towards entrepreneurship, and …
New winds in Peruvian Nikkei poetry - Part 2
Jan. 7, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Read part 1 >> Poetry is plastic. At least that can be deduced from some of the collections of poems that some Nikkei have published in recent years. Disparate editions, poems based on real events, self-published poets and loose verses on social networks also show the winds that carry poetic work towards new directions. The survival of some contests and awards emerges as one of the few incentives in the face of the pandemic crisis that has undermined the entire …
New winds in Peruvian Nikkei poetry - Part 1
Dec. 6, 2021 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Nikkei poetry has a long history in Peru, starting with classic authors such as José Watanabe or Doris Moromisato, whose collections of poems date back to the seventies and eighties. In subsequent years, other authors such as Juan de la Fuente Umetsu have followed an aesthetic with a notable Japanese influence, the same that has inspired other Peruvian poets without Japanese ancestry such as Diego Sánchez Barreto and Alonso Belaunde Degregori, who are closer to haiku. In recent times, Nikkei …
Brief history of a Nikkei videographer
Nov. 1, 2021 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Harumi López Higa is only 26 years old, but has a long life story that she has been able to summarize in a short film that has brought her early but unanimous recognition. The video Spring Sea , which refers to the meaning of its name, was selected among the 50 best short films at the 12th International Inter University Short Film Festival Bangladesh 2020. And it has continued to receive distinctions. It has been a short path, in time, …
The crossed paths of Peruvian and Japanese literature
Sept. 1, 2021 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Geographic distance has not been a reason to separate the literary creation of two countries as dissimilar as Peru and Japan, whose real stories have fueled those of fiction. Writers and academics have looked at the crossed paths of these nations, finding themes, coincidences and other curiosities from migration. Japanese professor Shigeko Mato is a student of both literatures and has specialized in analyzing their subtle encounters. She says that her professors at the University of New Mexico, in the …
Marisa Matsuda: Shaping her ideals
July 7, 2021 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Her life has passed between art and highly competitive sports, with notable breaks that she has dedicated to that other demanding job that is being a mother. Marisa Matsuda Matayoshi studied industrial design at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and since she was at La Unión school she became a fan of softball, a sport that she does not stray away from, after having competed at a professional level and having represented the national team. . After being a …
Eliana Otta, inspired by the city
June 4, 2021 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Memories often seem to come from a past that fades in memory. Luckily, Eliana Otta Vildoso (Lima, 1981) has several ties that bring her closer to her hometown, her childhood and other drivers of inspiration for this artist and now writer, whose children's book Lucía has street (Pesopluma, 2021) has allowed him to capture part of his Lima memories, now that he resides between Austria and Greece, while completing his doctorate at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He smiles …
Luciana Yamashiro: Plasticine Spirit
May 3, 2021 • Javier García Wong-Kit
When playing with her partner's daughter, Luciana Yamashiro noticed that her dolls must be tired of always having to eat bread and pizza, plus an occasional banana, and no Peruvian food. Then it occurred to him that they could make dishes with plasticine. He's told it before in a few interviews, but every time he repeats the anecdote he seems happy to be telling a good prank. This is how “ Plasticina Feliz, Mini clayfood ” was born, the name …
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