Hi all,

Long time no see! Hope all is well with you and your loved ones 😊

First of all, any decent correspondence by a Japanese person must begin with a good solid apology.

I am sorry for my long hiatus in the virtual space! Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…

NOTE: When a Japanese person speaks in English, “sorry” is usually repeated at least twice up to 4 times (don’t you agree with me?)

Now I am talking absolute nonsense… but I had a long break from my SNS (except for DMs) after I closed my Twitter to stay away from negative news and also because I didn’t have much to report to.

Now I have a few interesting projects going, I thought it’d be a good timing for an update.

UPDATE 1: English Rakugo in Tokyo

My master invited me to perform rakugo in Tokyo (Asakusa) in December, so I’m going to perform there at the end of the year. Keep an eye out for this blog and/ or my SNS.

UPDATE 2: Another Project with Fiona Amundsen

As you may know, I have had a privilege of working with an artist, Fiona Amundsen, for the last few years. Our works have been exhibited at art galleries and festivals in Finland, New Zealand, and Japan.

She’s kindly invited me again for another project, this time along with a well-known author. We had our first meeting at my favourite French cafe a few weeks ago.

UPDATE 3: School Visits

I have resumed school visits. In order to test the updated contents of my workshops, I have decided to visit 5 schools/ libraries free of charge. It will include my new favourite story called “Licking a Kettle” (やかんなめ) 😁

I have committed myself to 3 organisations so far, 2 more to go. If you are interested, please contact me asap- first come, first served!

UPDATE 4: Finished Translation Project

As some of you know, I have been translating a Japanese story called ‘The Restaurant of Many Orders’ (注文の多い料理店) by Kanji Miyazawa into Te Reo Māori. It has been submitted to a publisher to be considered for publication, and I heard back from them!!!

The short answer is… it is not going to be published, BUT it was due to the story itself being too simple and also not very relatable to the Māori audience. I was happy and humbled to hear that the lack of my language command was not the reason. In fact, the publisher kindly suggested me to try translating another story and recommended me to submit the same work to another publisher/ competition 😊

A small step forward to accomplishing my dream to connect Te Ao Hapanihi and Te Reo Māori directly, completely bypassing Te Ao Pākehā (no offence!).

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