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
Chancay Nikko: A Documentary with Memory
Jan. 24, 2018 • Javier García Wong-Kit
The history of the Japanese-Peruvian community has many chapters, although some have been lost in the memories of the immigrants who arrived to work on the plantations of northern Peru without knowing how to speak Spanish. Many of them kept their memories to themselves. Interestingly, Japanese schools are a crucial element for understanding those times and how the first generations of Nikkei were educated. In 2017, the Chancay Nikko school has played a key role in two important events that have …
A pilgrim of Peruvian and Nikkei culture
Oct. 23, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit
In contemporary Peruvian culture, there is a constant plowing of the country's traditions to give them a new meaning, a personal reading and a fresh look that helps, who knows, to be incorporated into the manifestations that will be remembered in the future. Peregrino Origin is more or less that, a proposal by four young artists who began by taking different historical elements until consolidating an image that begins to distinguish them. Diego Lau, Hugo Kuroki, Aldo Estrada and Gonzalo …
Anthony Aoki, promise of Peruvian football
Sept. 18, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit , Asociación Peruano Japonesa
If soccer is the corner of optimism for Peruvians, the national team is its maximum expression. In this enthusiastic scenario, every young footballer knows a mysterious word: promise. Anthony Tadashi Aoki Nakama is 17 years old and was captain of the under 17 team that played in the South American this year, a young man who has seen his life change because of the sport that moves the masses and in which he hopes to forge a profession. Tadashi, who …
Sandra Nakamura: Her Space, Her Language
Sept. 6, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit
There are as many artistic manifestations as there are artists in existence. Each artist seems to build their own universe of techniques, methods and meanings in their work. The work of Sandra Nakamura Lam (born in Lima in 1981) is particular, combining historical research, spatial design, definition of concepts and social significance. Much of Sandra’s work stems from her professional training in architecture, which she left behind after discovering a preference for creativity over functionality, following the sense of stimulation …
Cerato Café: Between dogs and books
July 24, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit
It is difficult to be original in the commercial environment, so when a business breathes that dedication to making a space a different place, it is difficult not to stop at the praise. Sumiko Morales Hayashi studied architecture and practiced her profession like any young Peruvian woman finishing a university degree when she decided to embark on her own business. He was 25 years old. I had worked designing buildings, hangars, residences and other projects but in none of them …
Sofía Pichihua, Cardcaptor Sakura collector and Guinness Record
July 5, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit , Asociación Peruano Japonesa
Sofía Pichihua is not just any otaku. This manga fan, who began following the anime that aired on television back in 2000, has become the biggest collector of Cardcaptor Sakura , the manga by CLAMP, a female quartet of Japanese cartoonists who gave life to Sakura Kinomoto, a girl who discovers that she has magical powers after releasing a set of cards found in a book. Sofia says that since she was a girl she watched anime through the open …
Ken Ychicawa: Jazz, music and consciousness
June 12, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit
For the painter Henri Matisse, the greatest exponent of Fauvism, a movement that has been defined as “the drunkenness of color,” in which bright tones are used without relation to reality, jazz is “rhythm and meaning.” The Frenchman was a great lover of this musical genre, to which he dedicated a work made with cut papers. For the Peruvian musician of Japanese descent Ken Ychicawa Vélez, beyond aesthetic and stylistic issues, jazz is simply “honest music of the present”, an …
Nikkei Soccer Players: The Stories Behind the Ball - Part 2
May 16, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Read Part 1 >> Nikkei names delighted Peruvian soccer fans from the 1950s to the 1980s, and in subsequent decades this wave of enthusiasm expanded to other countries. And just like with the Iwasaki brothers, there was yet another story of Nikkei brothers. There was no shortage of Asian names among the 16 teams in the national league, which was known as the "decentralized league" because it resulted from the consolidation of the regional and metropolitan leagues. When "Coki" Hirano …
Nikkei Soccer Players; The Stories Behind the Ball - Part 1
March 15, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Passion for soccer knows no boundaries and has become widespread among descendants of the Japanese who arrived in Peru more than 90 years ago from a country with little affinity for the sport. What they found in Peru was overwhelming devotion that led them to participate at a professional level starting in the 1950s, with many playing for the national team. Some names have been lost to poor record-keeping or they simply slipped under the radar in the long list …
Yogashi Patisserie: Pastries from three homelands
Feb. 13, 2017 • Javier García Wong-Kit
There is in Peru, a store whose creations represent three nationalities. At Yogashi Patisserie, in an unnoticed corner of Lima's San Borja district, a Nikkei sums up three countries in one dessert. The story of Carlos Yanahura has a link with French and Japanese pastries that have come to fruition in Peru. Carlos studied at the Los Andes Institute in the late nineties, years before gastronomy was the calling card of his country and, once graduated, he went to work …
