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
The Higas, A Family with a Legacy in the Nikkei Community
March 8, 2023 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Originally from the island of Okinawa, the Japanese surname Higa is one of the most common in that prefecture as well as in Peru’s Nikkei community. In fact, the Higas have played an important role in the community’s history. This is especially true of Haroldo Higa Taira, who shares the history of his ancestors and descendants who continue the traditions and collective spirit in their various gathering spaces. Eicho Higa, Haroldo’s grandfather, appears in a photograph in the archives of …
Tomoya Fusion Nikkei: the first izakaya in Peru
Dec. 28, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Every cuisine is a mixture of techniques, inputs and cultures in which the hand of its creators can be seen. The Japanese Peruvian, or nikkei, has undergone many changes since it emerged from restaurants such as Matsuei, by Nobu Matsuhisa, Toshiro's, by Toshiro Konishi, Hanzo, by Hajime Kasuga, Edo, by the Matsufuji family, Ichiban, by Hiro Nakagawa, or Maido by Mitsuharu Tsumura. Miguel Oshiro, creator of Tomoya Fusión Nikkei, worked on these last three, who has started a new culinary …
Passport Studio: The challenge of imagination
Oct. 25, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Many entrepreneurship stories begin like this: a group of friends gets together to start a project taking advantage of the trust and chemistry that exists between them. Many of these garage dreams prosper and end up becoming big brands that allow their founders to dream bigger. Some, like the advertising agency Pasaporte Studio, are making their dream a challenge against all reality. The story of the agency began five years ago, but that of Kiyoshi Salazar Nakama and Takeshi Asato …
Fernando Iwasaki: a historian anchored in literature
Aug. 10, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Anchored more than 25 years ago in a town in Seville, the Peruvian writer Fernando Iwasaki (Lima, 1961) could have disappeared from the radar of bookstore news if it were not for his active role as a historian, the subject of his professional training and the shore from which he usually writes essays and books that float between the historical and literary, such as the recent Brevetes de historia universal del Perú (Alfaguara, 2021). “I must admit that I do …
Leonardo Oyakawa: cooking his way
July 13, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
When he lived in Lima, no arrow or sign indicated to him that the path to his professional future would be in the kitchen. Although he liked to make desserts, as soon as he finished school he moved to Florida, United States, and started working as a cashier at a gas station. “My first experience in the kitchen was as a waiter, when the Peruvian Nikkei chef Oscar Noborikawa invited me to see how he prepared sushi.” His skill with …
Three Nikkei in digital trades
May 23, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
In recent years, various jobs have emerged that meet the needs of a market full of websites, social networks and online products that will require a series of professionals (communicators, designers and content generators) who are could be grouped into a flexible category: the new digital trades (although in reality they involve much more). These three Peruvian Nikkei show part of the great diversity of functions and qualities required to make a place for themselves in this labor market. * …
Nicole Higa Kobashigawa: Volunteer by Vocation
April 27, 2022 • Javier García Wong-Kit
If professional volunteerism were a career, Nicole Higa Kobashigawa might have chosen it. As a student at La Unión school in Lima, she excelled in all subjects, from math to physical education (she even learned to walk on stilts and juggle in a circus workshop). But she wasn’t focused on any subject in particular. That is, until sixth grade, when she volunteered for a leadership program to learn about teamwork and soft skills. She attended the program every Saturday morning …
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 …
