This episode features a conversation with Karen Hill Anton. For many years Karen wrote the greatly-loved Crossing Cultures column for the Japan Times. Karen arrived in Japan in 1975. Unlike many expatriates, however, she didn’t leading a cosmopolitan lifestyle in Tokyo. She and her husband Bill settled in a rustic farmhouse on the side of a mountain deep in Shizuoka prefecture, where they raised their family and integrated into the local community. Karen is a writer, dancer, artist and intercultural trainer and consultant. We discuss her new memoir—the View from Breast Pocket Mountain—and reflect on the challenges and rewards of intercultural living.
Why are some things—such as the Dutch word gezelligheid—so hard to translate? Will technology make language learning obsolete? Does speaking a foreign language change...