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  • Italy Milan
  • REPORTERYuriko Mikami

A cellist based in Milan. Performs as a soloist also with some ensembles. Has a wide range of genres from classic to pop. Actually plays in a band on an Italian comedian's TV show.

  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2023.02.03
  • Bathing
  • The Japanese love baths, and probably take baths at home more frequently than people in any other country. The Italians, on the other hand, are showerers by far.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2023.01.16
  • Wait time
  • I’m sure many tourists find it fun and interesting that stations in Japan play a variety of different chime melodies when the trains pull out.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.12.23
  • Presepe
  • The Christmas season is upon us once again. Lots of you are probably wondering just what sort of Christmas things there are to see and do if you go to Milan.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.12.08
  • A country of cobblestones
  • Italians are fashionistas through and through. I’ve lived for so long among them that I do my darndest not to be outstripped by Italian style—meaning I do everything in my power to dress to the nines when I go out—but it mostly ends in catastrophe.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.11.17
  • The furniture of Brianza
  • Between Milan and Lake Como to the north is a region known as Brianza. It’s the number-one nearby destination for Milanese looking to move away from the exhausting din of city life.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.10.14
  • A mountain of garbage?
  • Milan is generally a flat city, but there is a small hill in the northwestern part of it that I visited about 25 years ago, and I remember there being a lookout with wonderful views over low trees. Pleasant breezes blow at the top. It is a lovely place.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.10.05
  • Hints for penny-pinchers
  • There is an Italian vegetable called coste that looks a lot like bok choy. Coste means “core” in Italian, and white core (stalk) is so big that you can see how it got its name.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.09.05
  • Squirming cheese
  • If you ask someone from outside the country, they may say that Japanese people carry the scent of soy sauce and miso. On the other hand, when you go to France, for example, have you ever thought that people there carry the scent of cheese? The idea that people’s bodies can emit the scent of the foods they typically eat—like the pungent spices of Southeast Asian or Indian food—is an interesting one.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.08.22
  • Italy’s love of superstition
  • Italians are so magnanimous that they’ll tell you anything goes. But they’re still quite superstitious, and I’m sometimes surprised at how set in their ways they can be.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.07.27
  • Fishing for bluefin tuna
  • Italy is known around the world for its top-notch cuisine. The techniques and cooking methods that have arisen amidst its favorable climate, topography, and soil have resulted in an abundance of regional ingredients and dishes admired by people all over the world.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.06.29
  • Surviving the heat
  • Japan should be entering rainy season about now. Italy doesn’t have a period it calls “rainy season,” but it seems to me that up until a few years ago, February was a really rainy month. Maybe it’s climate change, but it seems like even the four seasons are disappearing lately, leaving just two per year—a hot season and a cold season.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.06.24
  • Marsala
  • I think of wine as a traditional form of art born from a collaboration between human ingenuity and nature’s blessings.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.06.13
  • Energy vortexes
  • Where do you personally go to recharge?
    Temples? Shrines? The mountains or to the islands?
    What do you feel when you go there?
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.05.25
  • Open and closed, open and closed
  • Whether they’re in Japan on business or traveling for pleasure, Italians are invariably dying to take a peek inside the everyday life of Japanese people—but they rarely know the right people to make that happen.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.05.11
  • I love aperitifs!
  • When I was a kid, I remember watching foreign films with scenes where people would arrive at a restaurant and be shown to the bar, sit on bar stools, cross their legs, and enjoy a cocktail while they waited for their reservation to be ready—or else they’d order an aperitif at the bar while waiting for their dining companion to arrive.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.04.20
  • Father’s Day
  • I’m not the best daughter, so I never paid attention to whether it was Mother’s Day or Father’s Day as a kid, much less celebrated it for my parents. That’s probably why I never noticed how different Father’s Day is in Italy and in Japan.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.04.07
  • Salt and the Salaryman
  • For nearly a century, the Japanese have used the English-inspired term “salaryman” to describe white-collar workers employed by big firms or government offices, though it seems to have fallen out of use recently in favor of another English-derived word, “businessman.” But even if “salaryman” has become somewhat dated, I personally think it has a wonderful ring to it—especially since the Japanese adverb sarari is used to describe something done readily, lightly, or smoothly.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.03.17
  • Bicycle-friendly
  • It’s surprising to learn that for generations, bicycles were the primary mode of transport through the streets of Milan for most people.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.02.18
  • Experiencing Japan
  • You’ll probably be surprised to learn that there are nearly twenty different theme parks across Japan that recreate the feel of Western locations—among them La Cittadella in Kawasaki, where you can immerse yourself in an Italian atmosphere, and Tressa in Yokohama, which recreates the streetscapes of Lyons, France. It’s fascinating to feel like you’ve arrived in a different country without a passport or having to get on a plane—whether it’s Hawaii, Scotland, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, or Spain.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2022.01.12
  • Everything in moderation
  • One of the things that amazes Italians when they visit Japan is how differently Japanese people act during the day versus after-hours. The polite and proper Japanese that they encounter during their daytime excursions suddenly transform into the ones they see at night.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.12.16
  • Forming tighter bonds
  • Are you an introvert or an extrovert? I know I’m an introvert, which is sometimes draining for me, but I work hard to pretend to be extroverted. Being timid, shy, or uncomfortable around strangers doesn’t help when you’re a professional performer.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.11.19
  • Masks
  • These days, masks are mandatory in indoor spaces in Italy. I’ve also noticed that a lot of Milanese even wear their masks when they’re outside walking around.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.11.08
  • Calendars
  • In Japan, you often see calendars called Rokuyo calendars, which are six-day calendars with terms such as Butsumetsu, Tomobiki, and Taian on them.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.10.21
  • Classically Milan
  • People in Japan are highly conscious of regional characteristics—Kanto versus Kansai, dyed-in-the-wool Tokyoites versus people who are pure Osakan.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.09.24
  • Food expressions
  • If you want to get into a lively conversation with an Italian, your best bet is to start talking about food. Italian cuisine is as rich and wonderful as Japanese cuisine, so the cultures are similar in that everyone is interested in food.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.09.08
  • The green pass
  • How did you spend your summer holidays this year?Were you glued to the TV watching the Olympic Games? It must have been quite an emotional rollercoaster watching the competitions—sad or angry one minute and smiling and laughing the next.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.08.30
  • What it’s like in Grado
  • Italy is a country that has retained its deep-rooted regional characteristics. Although it became unified about 160 years ago, up until then the current local government bodies were made up of principalities.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.08.05
  • The Milano Musical Awards
  • Italy is the birthplace of the opera, and given its long history here, there are ongoing discussions these days on what to do about the fact that young people are increasingly disinterested in classical music.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.07.20
  • Free Time
  • Which household chore do you like the least? Laundry? Cleaning? Dishes? Ironing? Thanks to all of our household appliances these days, being able to leave all kinds of tedious chores to our machines is really convenient.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.07.07
  • Trust
  • From what I can tell, the Italians see the Japanese as serious, punctual, proper—qualities like that. There was an Italian beermaker that was delighted to get a contract to export its product to Japan, but was then shocked when Japan sent back several bottles because the labels were misaligned.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.06.22
  • The Laid-back Italian Life
  • Theft is common in Italy. There’s actually an art to it here, which makes it hard to have animosity towards the thieves. Burglars were everywhere in the years before I moved here, to the point that people have often told me that they would leave a few bills (lira back then instead of euros) on the table when they went out as a way of saying “here, I’ve left these for you, please don’t disturb the rooms in my house,” thus preparing for the thief’s visit. It’s a strange custom when you think about it—or perhaps it’s just a testament to how laid-back things were back then.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.06.04
  • Tipping
  • I think it’s pretty common in most cities and towns to have a book-share program where volunteers go around collecting used books from people so that anyone can read them. In recent years, sharing programs have gotten popular for vehicles—rental bicycles, scooters, even cars.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.05.25
  • Changing lifestyles
  • The widespread popularity of online shopping has changed the way we buy things. Back when buying things over the internet was relatively rare, I’d sometimes get in the mood to shop and look through all kinds of catalogs, but I’d rarely end up actually following through with a purchase.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.05.11
  • Which is better?
  • Italians who have traveled to Japan on business or for pleasure often remark, “The days in Japan are so short! I can’t believe it gets dark so early!”
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.04.19
  • Regional dialects
  • I picked a career that’s a bit off the beaten path, so I ended up going to a conservatory in Tokyo rather than a local high school.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.04.06
  • The subway
  • The buildings of Italy have an incredibly rich history. If you want to dig out a foundation for a new building in a place like Rome and end up discovering ruins underneath, the construction might be put on hold for decades while archeologists investigate the site.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.03.19
  • Fighting
  • Watching American movies and television shows growing up, I was always amazed at how friends could fire strings of truly awful words at each other and still end up making up in the end. It was probably a strange thing to focus on, but I actually felt a bit of admiration for a world in which people could fight like that.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.03.10
  • The Ugly Duckling
  • I was at my regular supermarket the other day, and what I realized after really looking around for a while was that even though I’ve lived in Italy for over twenty years, there are still vegetables and other ingredients that I’ve never eaten.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.02.24
  • A failure or a great success?
  • There are plenty of things to admire about Italy—the architecture, the cars, the handsome soccer players… but one thing everyone can agree on is that the Italians have amazing fashion sense, particularly when it comes to shoes.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.01.29
  • 2021
  • How do you want to spend 2021? The year 2020 was a weird one—unlike any we’d experienced before. Maybe that’s why the New Year didn’t really feel any different to me. Is it just me? I doubt anyone expected that the coronavirus would be kicking us around for an entire year.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.01.20
  • Dishes named after monks and priests
  • These days, you can buy Japanese food at almost any supermarket. In today’s world, you can live abroad and still enjoy plenty of your favorites from back home. But if you go to an Italian supermarket in search of ingredients to make a Japanese meal, you’re still going to have some obstacles to overcome.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2021.01.08
  • Merda, merda, merda!
  • Although it’s been about a year since we first started hearing reports of the coronavirus, COVID-19 continues to ravage the globe. In hard-hit Milan, where I live, we’ve been saddled with all kinds of restrictions and inconveniences.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.11.30
  • Priest-choker pasta
  • When you really think about it, the biggest stumbling blocks created by the language barrier when you visit other countries have to be during meals, right?
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.11.16
  • Just over the border
  • If you drive north out of Milan for thirty or forty minutes, you’ll come to Lake Como. It has a distinctive shape that looks like an upside-down Y, so it’s one of the more memorable Italian lakes.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.09.30
  • supermarket
  • I’m not the kind of person who pays much attention to nutrition or calories. My weight hasn’t changed in decades—and while I’m not saying I have the ideal diet, it certainly can’t be that bad.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.09.16
  • Secret Garden
  • There’s a book I used to read when I was young called The Secret Garden. It’s about a girl who finds a forgotten garden that nobody else knows about. It’s a tale full of mystery and adventure, one that I loved and read countless times. I always wanted to discover a place like that, and I was disappointed when I looked around the places I grew up and realized I was unlikely to ever find a hidden spot.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.08.18
  • How the King of Cheese was save
  • About 120 kilometers south of Milan is the town of Parma. Soccer fans are quite familiar with Parma, as all eyes in Japan turned to the town when Hidetoshi Nakata was transferred there. But it’s not soccer that put Parma on the map—it’s the town’s dry-cured ham and parmesan cheese.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.07.29
  • Bobbio
  • Not long after I moved to Milan, I started hearing people talk about a village called Bobbio from time to time. It’s a small town of around 3,500 people located about 100 kilometers south of the city, but I had no idea why it was so well-known or why people kept bringing it up in conversation.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.07.01
  • Bottoms
  • The streets of Milan are a mix of all kinds of styles—a jumble of former aristocratic mansions, imposing Fascist structures, public housing built to support families that are financially struggling, and more.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.06.18
  • EATALY
  • Italy is known for its incredible food, and regional specialties like delicious wine, ham, pizza, pasta, and gelato have long been loved across the globe. But since the coronavirus hit, Italy has been shut off from the rest of Europe and from the rest of the world.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.05.29
  • A Haunted Mansion
  • Villa Simonetta was purposely built far away from the center of town, and though it’s by no means in the Milan suburbs today, it’s in a location that was surely separated from the city long ago.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.04.14
  • Sheltering in place
  • Some countries are in the midst of grappling with the coronavirus head-on, some are gradually starting to feel the effects, and some haven’t really been affected much yet.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.04.07
  • Urban Life Surrounded by Greenery
  • The streets of Milan have changed dramatically over the last ten years. There was a sudden peak right before the MilanoExpo-2015, with the construction of numerous high-rises significantly changing the look of the city.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.03.24
  • Castrato
  • The other day, I read an article on the latest album from Italian mezzo-soprano singer Cecilia Bartoli. My resulting curiosity led me to search for information on various topics, eventually leading me into the world of the castrato.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.03.10
  • Paparazzi
  • Even though I’ve appeared on television programs, I’m really just a supporting cast member and a humble, obscure musician. Nobody’s ever stopped me on the street when I go out or asked me to sign a photograph.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.02.20
  • Nutella
  • Have you ever eaten Nutella? I hadn’t until the first time I ever came to Italy and made my first Italian friends. That was about thirty years ago.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.01.22
  • A witch bearing gifts
  • Daily life in Milan changes completely once December rolls around. The Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) erects a massive Christmas tree every year, and people also put ones in their shops and homes.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2020.01.15
  • Culture shock
  • The other day, a Japanese acquaintance living in Milan was complaining about something that I found extremely interesting.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.12.20
  • Gambero Rosso
  • On nights when you decide to eat out, how to you choose where to go? In Japan, you might check the ratings on the food review site Gurunavi. Or maybe you turn to the trusted reviews in the French-published Michelin Guide?
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.12.06
  • Flooding
  • Maybe it’s just another abnormal weather phenomenon, but in November various parts of Italy have been experiencing flooding for the last few weeks due to the rain that started at the end of October. Venice was hit particularly hard, and the damage has been on the news daily.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.11.22
  • Liberty
  • There are several parks by my house, and they’re always divided into lots of sections with fences. There are play areas for little kids, horizontal bars and other training equipment for athletes, spaces where dogs can run off-leash, and so on.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.11.12
  • Japanese
  • So… I’m just wondering how many Japanese words are now being used outside of Japan. When I first came to live in Italy, I couldn’t help but smirk at the Italians who wanted to show off all the Japanese words they knew besides arigato—terms like shogun, samurai, ninja, hara-kiri, and seppuku that now have nothing to do with modern Japanese life.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.10.24
  • Raphael
  • I’m a bit embarrassed to remember it now, but whatever I drew wouldn’t come off—even if I wanted it to. I probably knew it was something I shouldn’t do even as a child, but there I was bored and having to wait for adults, and other kids had written all kinds of things on the wall… so I just went ahead and started drawing.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.10.10
  • Nudes
  • When I first started living in Italy, I experienced culture shock in many different ways. I had been abroad a handful of times growing up so I had encountered different countries, towns, and types of people—but Italy still flooded me with intense discoveries.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.09.26
  • Eating at UFO?
  • I’m always surrounded by Italians, and they love jokes. Usually I can follow along when they’re chatting away, but there are still times when I get tripped up.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.09.10
  • All about salt
  • Something that really stuck with me happened several years ago with a Sicilian coworker of mine who had relocated to Milan.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.09.02
  • Illusionist art
  • The heat is still relentless here… I was laying around at my house, knocked out from the heat, when I inadvertently ran into a video on YouTube about how to draw realistic art
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.07.12
  • The many faces of the moon
  • Milan’s hot summer is here. Surrounded by mountains, the city receives few breezes in the summer, resulting in high, heat-island temperatures that make even those of us used to Japan’s hot summers feel like we’ve been scorched. Not a day goes by where we don’t want to jump into a pool in order to cool ourselves down from head to toe.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.07.02
  • Copy
  • They say Japanese people are good with their hands. Surely you must also be good at making things, too. So what kinds of things do you make? Everyone has a different path, such as starting out as a hobby and learning on your own as you create works, or by taking lessons and having your works appreciated by others.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.06.18
  • The Connections Born at MAMU
  • Did you ever visit Abashiri Prison? It’s not an uncommon destination on high school field trips in Japan. It’s been a long time since I went there, but the fact that it was nice weather instead of winter and that they’ve turned it into a museum meant that it didn’t leave the terrifying impression you’d expect from a prison.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.06.05
  • The Connections Born at MAMU
  • No doubt there are plenty of people who like to visit the many cafés of Paris and indulge in the nostalgic air of places once frequented by poets and painters while sipping their coffee.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.05.17
  • Aging in an unexpected place
  • When I was little, TV-watching time at home was very limited due to the idea that watching too much television was bad for you. In reaction to that, I woud watch TV in secret when I was home alone while my parents were out, for as long as I could no matter how long they were gone.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.03.26
  • The most beautiful way to travel
  • Being a peninsula, Italy is surrounded by as many oceans as the island nation of Japan. There is the Adriatic Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Ligurian Sea, the Ionian Sea… all of them collectively known as the Mediterranean Sea.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.03.11
  • Ever-popular Japan
  • A major expo event was held in Milan for the first time in 2015. It’s hard to believe it’s already been more than three years since then. The Japanese Pavilion was one of the most popular parts of the expo—so popular that I had to wait three and a half hours to get in.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.02.25
  • Lost love
  • Looking back on youth, there is the piercing pain of that moment you find out that the feelings you have for someone you’ve never even spoken to will go unrequited. Or the time when, as an adult, you experienced months or years of joy with a person only to have the relationship crushed out of nowhere…
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.02.05
  • The December nightmare and the January witch
  • Shiwasu is the month that corresponds to December in the traditional Japanese calendar. The year is coming to a close, and I suspect that it’s a month when not a single Japanese person can shake the uneasy feeling that they’re being pressured by something.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2019.01.30
  • Water
  • Human beings have an intimate relationship with water. We drink it, and it’s deeply involved with every part of our lives. I didn’t know about the differences between water in Japan and other countries when I lived in Japan.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.12.18
  • Winter in northern Italy
  • Autumn was warm this year in Milan, and even though we’re now into December, the mild winter temperatures continue compared to the average year.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.12.10
  • What I don’t like
  • Italians are always asking me what I like and what I can’t stand about Italy. If I have some time when I’m in the middle of those conversations, I try to go beyond just listing my likes and dislikes and get sidetracked more into the stories behind the two.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.11.28
  • Showdown! Me Versus the Italians
  • I’ve lived in Milan for over twenty years now, but I can’t seem to get any better at the language—so my Italian still isn’t very good. Apparently I continue to make basic grammatical mistakes all the time.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.11.06
  • Mushrooms
  • The appetites of fall have arrived. But this year the temperatures have not dropped in Milan, even though we have passed the middle of October. The fall doesn’t feel like fall.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.10.25
  • What’s the Real Story?
  • Soon after I arrived in Italy I tasted prickly pear for the first time, in Sicily. That first time prickly pear ever passed my lips, I was surrounded by Sicilians with their eyes fixed on me, as though they were conducting an experiment to see what would happen, rather than actually giving some food to me, this Japanese person who had never eaten prickly pear before.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.10.11
  • Coffee
  • Coffee is an essential part of everyday life in Italy. No matter how easygoing, Italians demonstrate extraordinary fastidiousness when they make coffee in their espresso pots with ground coffee.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.09.27
  • Speechless over more than just the view
  • Lake Como is located about an hour train ride from Milan. When I first moved to Italy, the guidebooks were all full of information about it, so I figured it was a huge tourist spot and remember heading out to visit it right away.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.09.18
  • “Monza”?
  • Most Japanese people think of Italy favorably, so when I introduce myself and say I live in Italy, they generally reply with a gleam in their eyes “Wow, great!” and then ask me “Where in Italy do you live?” I live in Milan, which fortunately absolutely everyone knows.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.08.29
  • A cover-up?
  • Summer vacation is finally here again in Italy. Kids here get a long three-month summer break starting in early June. When I tell Italian children that Japanese kids get barely over a month of summer vacation, they all give me a look that says, “thank goodness I was born in Italy!”.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.08.20
  • Pinocchio
  • Pinocchio is a character that has been loved for generations… to the point that there’s hardly anyone alive who doesn’t know the Adventures of Pinocchio story. It’s truly a classic.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.07.18
  • Igloos in Milan
  • A Japanese couple I’m friends with traveled to several European cities, eventually ending up in Milan for their final stop. I told them I would meet them at Central Station, but they assured me that it was unnecessary; they would be arriving in Milan on an express train from Switzerland. We ended up meeting around dinnertime
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.06.28
  • Uncooked Ham (Prosciutto)
  • May and June have been unusually wet this year. We’ve had so much rain that I am reminded of the Japanese tsuyu rainy season. But it gets hotter every day, and it feels like the season for fruit. The fragrance of ripe peaches and melons gets me excited for shopping.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.06.19
  • Speed
  • I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, but Italy is a Christian country. This means that Sunday is the Sabbath. Schools and companies are closed on Saturdays and Sundays. You probably think that having 2 days off in a row means leading a truly relaxing life, but I’ve realized that in reality it’s surprisingly quite a busy 7 days.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.05.17
  • The Design Fair
  • Italy is a Christian country, and the religion dictates that Sunday should be a day of rest. Living here, you can feel a special kind of tranquility on the weekend—even in the city. It’s completely different than the weekdays.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.05.01
  • Behind the scenes at the open-air markets
  • To me, the fun of overseas travel is as much about shopping and eating in great restaurants as it is about visiting famous historical sites. Certainly some of the more interesting places to shop in Italy—and places that are frequented by tourists as well—are the open-air mercato.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.04.17
  • Bonding through farming
  • Have you ever been walking through the city in the blazing heat of summer and been flooded with gratitude for being able to rest beneath the shade of a single tree? The summers in Milan are just as hot as the ones in Tokyo, and when I’m walking through the city with sun beating down me and the heat radiating up from the asphalt and I find the shade of a single tree where I can find mental and physical relief, Handel’s” Ombra mai fu” starts playing in my head.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.04.04
  • Reality vs. illusion
  • Do you ever find yourself thinking back on the times when you were younger, lost in the world of make-believe? For boys, it’s often dreams of being a racecar driver or pilot as they played with toy cars or planes—or fighting evil for the sake of justice in a Gundam robot suit. Little girls might play house with dolls, try on a Cinderella dress, or dream of living in a beautiful house cooking delicious food…
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.03.22
  • Names
  • When I first moved to Italy, I made it a point to memorize the names of everyone I met. Twenty years later, if I run into one of them I’ll remember it and remind them that we’ve met before. They’re shocked. Apparently, the things I saw and the people I met when I first got here left a deep impression on me.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.03.07
  • Tradition
  • Most Westerners tend to be friendly, but the Italians are particularly so. When I first got here, everyone did their best to immerse me—a Japanese who spoke almost no Italian—in their local culture. They invited me out for drinks, to the movies, to evening gatherings with friends, and made several other truly friendly gestures that I appreciated.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.02.21
  • Canals
  • There’s a city without a single subway or bus traveling within it. There aren’t even any cars there—and in the 21st century, no less! Yet, this uncommon place is far from being an anachronism or behind the times. What city is it?
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.02.07
  • Sharing
  • Milan has canals, but it is also a flat city with no mountains or hills. Kind of disappointing for someone like me, who prefers a rugged landscape. One thing a flat city does promote, however, is the use of bicycles. City bikes have been absolutely indispensable to Milanese life for generations.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.01.24
  • Unique in all the world
  • There are said to be 116 individuals certified as Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties in Japan—also known as National Living Treasures who have mastered an exceptional skill. I think Japan is extremely good at developing people who excel in one particular area.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2018.01.11
  • Mysterious after-five friends
  • Where do you go once you leave the office after a hard day’s work? A lot of you probably say you go out drinking with co-workers. Partially to blend in with the Milanese culture and partially to avoid the rush-hour traffic of so many people hurrying home at once, I also frequently go out to enjoy an aperitif before heading home.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.11.30
  • Enjoying farms
  • The other day, my coworker gave me some persimmons. Apparently, they went to take care of a garden for a relative who is in recovery from illness and there were tons of ripe fruit on the persimmon trees. It would have been a waste to leave them there, so she picked them.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.11.16
  • What comes out as the mist fills the air?
  • Autumn in Milan is warmer this year than usual and the days are actually quite comfortable. That said, as winter approaches, there will be more days when Milan is covered in mist. Because of the heat island effect, the misty area has been mostly limited to the suburbs in recent years, but on days when it is very thick, even the city center becomes covered in it.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.11.01
  • A Charming Race
  • In Tuscany, Italy there is a town called Siena. It goes without saying that Siena is a beautiful place, but what it’s really famous for is the magnificent midsummer festival it holds when the Palio horse race takes place. What overwhelmed me about the Palio di Siena wasn’t the race itself, however. It was the midnight parades meant to build up excitement in the days before the event.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.10.25
  • The 3 “Ts”
  • Cremona is a town an hour’s drive from Milan. For me, a musician, it’s a town with an extremely strong connection. Although it’s a small town of 60,000 people, it is also a place that garners the interest of performers and violin makers throughout the world. I think that even among people who aren’t musicians, many know the name of Stradivari.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.10.04
  • Bento boxes in Italy
  • In Japanese families, it’s customary for every person at the dinner table to have their personal set of chopsticks, personal rice bowl, and so on. Maybe because of those traditions, similar practices spread to workplaces—where for some time now, everyone has had a habit of bringing their own cups or bottles with them.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.09.20
  • Milan’s Evolving Train Stations
  • When I first came to Milan, I set out on a sightseeing trip to another town—though I didn’t speak any Italian. I couldn’t tell from my guidebook whether it was a town worth seeing, but I figured I’d just go and check it out.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.09.07
  • Work vs. personal interests
  • Those of you who work—how did you end up choosing your job?I was born into a music-loving family, so grew up around musical instruments from a young age. It wasn’t that I had any special talent for music, but I always had the sense that musicians were artists and somehow wonderful—so I just kind of ended up on that path. Maybe that’s why I’ve lived a life where there’s not much distinction between my personal interests and my work.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.08.18
  • If You Follow the Road Signs…
  • I am convinced that Milan really is a small town. If you go by car from the center, say from Duomo, toward the outskirts, within 30 minutes you are surrounded by cornfields.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.07.12
  • Various Schemes
  • When visiting a foreign country on a tourist trip, it is normal for people to visit the tourist spots and enjoy their history and beauty, right?
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.06.28
  • Hurry! It’s soccer!
  • The other day, the Union of European Football Associations Champions League held its final tournament.It was the match between Juventus from Italy and Real Madrid from Spain.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.06.07
  • Chilling Places
  • For Japanese, the popular tourist spots in Italy are probably the cities of Rome, Venice, Florence, Sicily and Milan.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.05.26
  • Horror
  • When you were a child, after impatiently pestering adults for a ghost story, did you end up screeching or exclaiming something like, “How scary!” or “I’ve got goose bumps?”
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.04.21
  • Tiramisu
  • Have you ever been told that you should be careful of men when you go to Italy?!Italian men are infamous for being smooth talkers.I wonder if that’s really true?
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.03.30
  • Putting Your Life on the Line
  • When I was a child, I lived in America and getting in the car was nerve wracking. The reason, though unbelievable now, was because at the time American drivers were really vicious. The car
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2017.03.17
  • Are these ceremonies for real?!
  • When I came to Italy 20 years ago, I was often approached by Italians with talk of business (if anything, it was more like favors). They came to me about developing a business
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • 2016.10.11
  • Milan’s Changing Dinner Table
  • We can now readily eat king crab from Hokkaido while in Tokyo, and enjoy our fill of local specialties from various communities while at home because of the development of the distribution system, and the variations and improvements in food preservation methods.
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  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami
  • Italy Milan
  • Yuriko Mikami

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