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
Raymi Kamishibai, the first Kamishibai school and library in Peru
Oct. 18, 2023 • Javier García Wong-Kit
There are initiatives that start with a name, with a man. Raymi Kamishibai is the first school and library for kamishibai, Japanese paper theater, directed by Pepe Cabana Kojachi, a Peruvian Nikkei of Ayacucho and Okinawan descent who mixed this technique in his art to tell stories for children with the aesthetic element of altarpieces, a type of wooden chest that brings together characters that stage a tradition from Andean Peru, to spread the work of their proposal “Mukashi, Mukashi” …
Reiwa Izakaya: Japanese taste in Peru
Sept. 11, 2023 • Javier García Wong-Kit
Nikkei fusion has been the main way in which Peruvians have learned about the benefits of Japanese cuisine. The wide variety of local ingredients has made most restaurants opt for a combination that has conquered palates around the world. Therefore, the commitment to open a traditional Japanese bar that serves typical, quality cuisine at an affordable price seems like a challenge of great proportions. Arturo Uchima and Julio Haruyama are the young people who created Reiwa Izakaya, the Japanese cuisine …
German Chinen Murata: The secret artist
July 24, 2023 • Javier García Wong-Kit
The story of German Chinen Murata (Lima, 1967) can be told as if it were a comic strip. The synopsis would be: a Peruvian Nikkei pursues his dream of being a cartoonist, but along the way he must travel to Japan to work, returning to his country to be a drawing teacher until one day he manages to have his own individual exhibition. His superpower? The persistence. Despite being a secret artist for many years, he maintained his dream of …
Breve y reciente historia del haiku en Perú
June 26, 2023 • Javier García Wong-Kit
El Perú parece tener sus propias corrientes literarias entre las que el haiku sopla como una ventisca refrescante en el aliento de autores de distinta índole. Esta forma poética japonesa ha sido cultivada por varios escritores peruanos, desde José Watanabe y Javier Sologuren, pasando por Alberto Guillén y Arturo Corcuera, hasta otras plumas contemporáneas, como Alonso Belaunde y Gonzalo Marquina, impulsores de este estilo poético que han cultivado en sendas obras. “Desde la lectura del diario de viaje de Bashō, …
“Nikkei postcards”: generational correspondence
June 2, 2023 • Javier García Wong-Kit
It began as a play and then became an intergenerational manifesto through the “Nikkei Letters of the Bicentennial” contest, whose objective was to document the feelings of the members of the Peruvian-Japanese community about the 200 years of the Independence of Peru. One of its youngest members, the Nikkei playwright Daniel Goya, had had a predecessor idea that he turned into the staging “ Letters from the Bicentennial ,” presented at the National Library of Peru. Subtitled “Theatrical scenes and …
The Uechi: brothers of Comadre and Compadre
March 27, 2023 • Javier García Wong-Kit
The Uechi brothers have a very fraternal relationship with entrepreneurship and gastronomy. Carolina's story begins in 2012, when she opened her restaurant “La Cocina de Caro”, 1 where her father and uncles were her first partners, and a couple of years later in Kilo, a different steakhouse that has given her prestige within of Peruvian cuisine. Pepe Uechi's story is different, it began on a soccer field and continued on another green field: the Peruvian jungle. “I studied at La …
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 …
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