Yuri Takahashi

In 1991, Yuri Takahashi was assigned to work as a Burmese language expert at the Japanese embassy in Myanmar (Burma). Three years later, she was transferred to the Japanese consulate in Sydney, Australia, where she was in charge of promoting Japanese culture and language to the Australian public. At present, Yuri has three commitments in her life – teaching Japanese at the University of Sydney, completing her PhD thesis on the history of modern Burma, and promoting her husband’s music internationally. In this Japanese-on-the-Move episode, Yuri tells us about her intercultural marriage with her partner from New Zealand. It all started one night when she visited a jazz club in Sydney soon after she arrived in Australia in mid 1994. She recognised a pianist, Mike Nock, a jazz musician she used to read about in her junior high school years.