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
Kamishibai: Paper theater does not stop
Dec. 28, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Japan is full of so many art forms that there are some little known outside their country, even in Peru, where the Nikkei community has developed and spread many of them, such as ikebana , bonsai , origami and manga. This is the only way to explain why there is only one exponent of kamishibai , the paper theater that emerged after the Second World War as a kind of street art. This is explained by Pepe Cabana Kojachi, known …
Meli & Marco: Having fun with music
Oct. 25, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
They have been recording videos of their musical improvisations for a couple of months, but the way they get along and enjoy their jam sessions seems like they have been doing it for years. Melissa Araki and Marco Shimabukuro are two young Peruvian musicians capable of playing any instrument they can get their hands on. Together they have formed a nice duo with which they fuse Japanese, Peruvian and rhythms from around the world, with sticky joy. They met 10 …
New trends in Nikkei cuisine
Sept. 7, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
The Peruvian appetite seems as great as its ability to create new businesses around its famous gastronomy. Although there are no official figures, every weekend you can hear, in an after-dinner conversation, about a new restaurant or business related to good eating or drinking. Among them, the Nikkei proposals have not lost step. In addition to the opening of new restaurants in 2015 (Oishii, by Toshiro Konishi, and Hosso, by Patricia Yamamoto, Peruvian itamae, among others), there are some that …
Daniel Silva Yoshisato: In the image and likeness
July 28, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Daniel walks through Miraflores with his eyes protected by dark moons. It's winter in Lima and his gaze doesn't appear until we enter a cafeteria where he orders a chai tea. If they had to write a definition of him under his name on the disposable cup, it would say videographer instead of photographer, the profession that has earned him various awards and publications in the media in America and Europe. Daniel Silva Yoshisato (Lima, 1975) has found another identity …
Kazoku: Heat of home and family
June 23, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
There is a place in Lima reserved for the older Nikkei, a peaceful place that, more than an asylum or a refuge like there is in the Peruvian capital, seems like a residence where they can feel at home. Kazoku (meaning 'family') has that philosophy: live with the comfort and care that you would have with your loved ones. Toño Tamashiro is the creator of what he defines as “the first private alternative for the elderly”, where the customs and …
A poet in stopped transit
May 25, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Language is the homeland of any poet. Perhaps that is why Juan Carlos de la Fuente Umetsu (Lima, 1963) has so much to say when he writes and speaks. His surnames in themselves have a meaning and a story that fits into his verses and dialogue, which immediately refer to the mysteries of his writing and to a charming man for his wise simplicity. He started writing at a very young age (at age eight) and still repeats that poetry …
Japanese: The culture behind a language
April 27, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Studying a language is a way to learn about the culture of a town or a country. And to know the ancient and modern culture of Japan, it is necessary to study its language and its forms of writing ( hiragana , katakana , kanji and rōmaji ), in addition to shodō (Japanese calligraphy) not out of duty, but for the enjoyment it produces. His learning. Those who teach it, those who have learned it and those who study it …
The Japanese Language in Peruvian Speech
April 15, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit , Asociación Peruano Japonesa
Languages crossed national borders well before globalization and today, in any part of the world, you can hear other languages spoken with both native and foreign accents. But what causes one language to incorporate words from another language and appropriate them for everyday use? Japanese culture figures prominently in Peru, as does the Japanese language, which has been assimilated by young people and adults through consumption of diverse products, media figures, and colloquial usage. It’s not surprising, then, that some …
Eduardo Tokeshi: A Portrait of Curiosity
March 21, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
His gaze conceals a reality that he has transformed into art. Eduardo Tokeshi, born in Lima in 1960, emanates a sense of imperturbable calm that he’s maintained from the time he began exhibiting his first works and walked around with long hair, and even on this particular afternoon when the weather seems to have come to a standstill in his home studio in Miraflores. At 55, Tokeshi has been working as an artist for almost three decades. Yet his work, …
A school for families
Feb. 9, 2016 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Parents go through three initial moments of uncertainty: when we still do not know the results of the pregnancy test, when in the mother's womb we discover that we do not know what to do when the baby arrives and when, once in our arms, we wonder how to be good parents. For the third, there are parent-child schools that are a continuation of the psychoprophylaxis classes that many receive during pregnancy. Only here the ones who learn are the …
