Update: "120 interviews later, photographer releases book about Japanese ‘hafu’ identity"

An update on the "Hafu2Hafu" project... Photo and text borrowed from Japan Today, 4/26/19.

A Japanese-Belgian photographer who has interviewed half-Japanese people with backgrounds from nearly 100 countries released a book this month.

The book is a culmination of Tetsuro Miyazaki’s racial-identity project that grew to 120 interviews — all documented in its 150 pages. After more than two years of interviews, the Hafu2Hafu project will continue to explore what it means to be half-Japanese even after the book’s release.

The paperback photo book, titled “Hafu2Hafu: A Worldwide Photography Project About Japanese Mixed Identity”, is a stunning collection of black-and-white portraits of half-Japanese, or hafu, a word most often used within Japan to label a person with one Japanese parent.

The book comes over five years after the ground-breaking documentary film about hafu in Japan (simply titled “Hafu”). On each page, interviewees do not answer questions but actually pose a question to you, the viewer/reader, to foster dialogue and stimulate self-reflection about identity.

Just like the project itself, Miyazaki hopes the book can serve as both a conversation starter and a tool for mixed Japanese families between parents and children, among siblings and so on.

“For Japanese people with mixed backgrounds who have not met many others like them, I hope this book will help them realize they are unique indeed but not alone,” he says.

In 2017, Japan Today documented Miyazaki during one of his early interviews. His work got a mention in the New York Times, as well as other publications in Japan such as The Japan Times and GaijinPot.

The photo book was funded through a crowd-source campaign on Kickstarter.com which wrapped up in March 2018. It is bilingual in Japanese and English, has 98 “other” countries represented, ships worldwide and costs around ¥3,700. You can buy the book off his website.

Miyazaki is still looking to do interviews with other hafu. Find details on his website if you or someone you know is interested in participating.

Source: https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/120-interviews-later-photographer-releases-book-about-japanese-%E2%80%98hafu%E2%80%99-identity

Hafu2Hafu website: https://hafu2hafu.org/

"A mission to capture the full range of half-Japanese experience — in 192 photos"

Photo and text borrowed from The Japan Times, 10/8/17.

The son of a Japanese father and Belgian mother, photographer Tetsuro Miyazaki grew up in a multilingual and multicultural environment.

“My younger sister and I were raised in Dutch-French-bilingual Brussels, where our dad would speak Japanese to us, our mom would speak Dutch, and they would communicate in French between themselves,” says Miyazaki, now 39. Annual summer vacations spent in Japan and Saturday school helped him connect further with his father’s culture.

Reflection on his own cultural heritage was a catalyst for the “Hafu2Hafu” project, a collection of portraits of other bicultural Japanese people.

“As a half-Japanese photographer, living in Amsterdam at that time, I wanted to take on a personal project that would force me to pick up my camera and meet people,” Miyazaki says.

He began by speaking with Dutch hāfu.

...

After interest in his initial sessions with Dutch hāfu led to invitations to present his work at symposiums overseas, Miyazaki came up with an ambitious plan to photograph a hāfu person with one parent from every other nation in the world.

“Since there are 193 sovereign countries, there are 192 possible different combinations. The idea behind this is that I want to show how diverse being half-Japanese can be and I want to understand the different aspects of it. What influences the way we experience the ‘half-Japanese’ side of our identity?”

Miyazaki says he has been humbled by the willingness of his subjects to open up and talk about their personal feelings. While each one has a unique story, some common themes have emerged.

“One topic that always comes up is about the sense of belonging,” he notes. “What also struck me is that most hāfu people find themselves to be quite empathic. While I can’t say for sure, I believe it has a lot to do with having to interpret two different languages, the corresponding nonverbal communication, cultural backgrounds and, sometimes, religious differences.”

Miyazaki’s interviews with participants who grew up in Japan reveal the sometimes ambivalent attitudes that bicultural people may encounter in this traditionally homogenic society.

“Both those raised abroad and those raised in Japan want to ‘belong’ to Japan more than most of them do. But this is more ‘painful’ when one is living in Japan. Even if you understand the Japanese language or the customs very well, you may not be considered Japanese and often do not get treated as such,” Miyazaki points out.

“Another difference is what ‘the other half’ is. There are Western hāfu, hāfu with African heritage or a Latin parent and then Asian hāfu. They all have very different experiences, both in Japan and abroad,” he says.

Some foreign parents of bicultural Japanese kids dislike the connotation of the label “half” and advocate for such people to be called “double.” Based on his interviews so far, however, Miyazaki says that most bicultural adults do not share this view.

“Although some dislike the label half/hāfu, most of them embrace it. It has also struck me that the dislike comes from the parents, who do not want to refer to their child as ‘half.'”

Read the whole article: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/10/08/issues/mission-capture-full-range-half-japanese-experience-192-photos/

Hafu2Hafu web page: http://hafu2hafu.org/

Hafu2Hafu Presentation and Workshop
Sunday, October 15 at 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
at Sophia University, Tokyo
More information: https://www.facebook.com/events/684305078440940/

The Image of Beauty in Contemporary Japan: "'Haafu' to represent Japan at Miss Universe 2015"

Photo and text borrowed from Japan Today, 3/16/15.

...For the second year in the row, the Japanese representative for the Miss Universe competition hails from Nagasaki, with last year’s crown holder being Keiko Tsuji. As cool as that is, the real story of the year is that the 2015 representative, Ariana Miyamoto, is half-Japanese.

It’s no surprise that Western features are considered beautiful in Japan. Sometimes, due to their alluring features, “haafu” are not always treated the same, or even as Japanese, as their native peers. Miss Nagasaki faced her fair share of race-related challenges too and although some people are against her acting as a representative for Japan due to her mixed heritage, she is also receiving a lot of support.

The final of the 18th Miss Universe Japan contest was held in Tokyo on March 8. As you’d expect, Miss Nagasaki faced some tough competition of equally beautiful and graceful young ladies, but it’d be a stretch to say that she didn’t stick out. However, it really was only her looks that set her apart, being born and raised in Japan, she is not only a Japanese citizen, but she identifies with Japanese culture and considers herself Japanese.

Twenty-year-old Ariana was born to a Japanese mother and an African-American father in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, the location of a major American naval base. After junior high graduation in Sasebo, she spent her high school years studying in the U.S. Upon returning to Japan as a young adult she set her sights on becoming a model.

Working part-time as a bartender, Ariana hesitantly entered the pageant scene, feeling that with her “foreigner look,” she would never make it far. How wrong she was!

But she’s not just a 173-cm bombshell; Ariana is described as a “saishoku kenbi,” “a woman blessed with both intelligence and beauty.” Growing up in Japan, she is no stranger to Japanese culture and even has a 5th degree mastery of Japanese calligraphy. She lists her hobbies as cooking and “touring,” having obtained her motorcycle license, a rare thing for a young woman in Japan.

Link: http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/haafu-to-represent-japan-at-miss-universe-2015

Special Screening of "HAFU"

With an ever increasing movement of people between places in this transnational age, there is a mounting number of mixed-race people in Japan, some visible others not. “Hafu” is the unfolding journey of discovery into the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experience in modern day Japan. The film follows the lives of five “hafus”–the Japanese term for people who are half-Japanese–as they explore what it means to be multiracial and multicultural in a nation that once proudly proclaimed itself as the mono-ethnic nation. For some of these hafus Japan is the only home they know, for some living in Japan is an entirely new experience, and others are caught somewhere between two different worlds (from the Hafu project website).

VAOJ presents a special screening of this film sponsored by the Kansai Gaidai University Center for International Education.
When:Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 6:45 PM
Where: KGU International Communications Center 4th floor Grand Hall
Admission: FREE

For more information about the film and project, and to see the film trailer, visit the project website: http://hafufilm.com/en/about/