Hudson Okada
@hudsonokadaUdê, a.k.a. Hudson Okada, was born in the city of Matão, São Paulo, on Aug. 2, 1979. Since 2005, he lives in the city of São Paulo’s Liberdade district. He is part of the Jornal Nippak team of collaborators. As a writer, he has won several literary contests – including an honorable second place in Brazil’s Sesc-DF Prize for Literature, in the short stories category.
Updated July 2016
Stories from This Author
Liberty neighborhood
April 26, 2017 • Hudson Okada
I have always interpreted this famous phrase by the Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, “If you want to be universal, start by painting your village”, in the following way: If you want to get to know all the villages in the world, dear reader, first get to know yours well; in this case, painting it in a painting. In other words: if you know the village where you live in depth, you will have reliable parameters to, perhaps, get to know …
Footballer
March 31, 2017 • Hudson Okada
One day it hit me: all my friends knew how to play soccer—except me. And that got me thinking: where did they learn all those rules and how did they learn to kick the ball like that? Of course, like every Brazilian they learned the ABCs of soccer while playing with their fathers in their backyards. And since my father—the son of Japanese immigrants—couldn’t care less about soccer, I was left behind. Now, what should have been nothing more than …
Star
March 6, 2017 • Hudson Okada
The first time I visited the city of Rio de Janeiro, I realized that there was something a little different there. On Monday, when I stayed longer, I confirmed what I had noticed and what I had heard from some relatives: people from Rio love Japanese. Not the adult Carioca but the child Carioca. I'm proof that Carioquinhas can't see a Japanese person – or one of Japanese descent, as is my case – and they immediately get excited. When …
Hai!
Aug. 23, 2016 • Hudson Okada
Every other week, I stop by a Japanese grocery store that's just down the block from my house, in Liberdade, to buy some basic products: sushi, soy sauce, tofu, rice... that sort of thing. And it was in this place that I met a little girl who is already a true athlete. I call her that because, despite still being very young – about three or four years old – this girl is already a phenomenal being, tireless, outstanding, even …
Mango
Aug. 11, 2016 • Hudson Okada
"Mango? Mango? Mango?" The scene that took place in front of me was quite unusual. It took me a few seconds to understand her: A woman, with a huge question mark over her head, looking at me and saying: “Man-ga? Mango? Mango?". At that moment, I realized that this would be a good opportunity to train my intuition – which was never “there” with these things. I started to raise hypotheses: Despite her Japanese accent and her Japanese appearance, I …
Né?
July 11, 2016 • Hudson Okada
Even though there are many words and expressions that characterize them for Brazilians—hai, banzai, and arigatô—the interjection né [Portuguese-language contraction of não [not] + é [is], meaning “isn’t it?”], of course, is the one that most relates to Japanese. That is evidenced by the fact that there isn’t a single jokester who has never teased a Japanese person, saying things like, “It’s expensive, né?,” “the Japanese have the slanted eye, né?,” and “the Japanese eat raranges, né?”. Note #1: When …
