Courage and Perseverance

In 1871, when Japan was only just beginning to open itself to the world after two and a half centuries of isolation, six-year-old Umeko Tsuda embarked on a journey that would forever alter the course of her life. She was the youngest participant of the Iwakura shisetsu – the grand mission that sent five children to the United States to study language, science, and the modernity of the West. In a world where women had no voice, she was chosen to become a bridge between two civilizations. Yet, for a small child, this meant something far more difficult than a diplomatic experiment: leaving her family, her country, her language, and stepping into the absolute unknown — alone, without parents, without kin. A five-year-old girl. No dry historical record can capture what she must have felt then — she had to grow up and survive at the same time, learning that loneliness can sometimes be the price of future freedom.

She spent more than a decade in America, an experience that shaped Umeko in ways no one could have foreseen. She returned to Japan as an educated, confident young woman, speaking English more fluently than her own native tongue. But the country she came back to was not ready for women like her. Meiji-era Japan was racing toward modernization, yet it still expected women to remain obedient, silent, and confined within the domestic sphere. Umeko fit into none of these molds. She was too “Western” for the Japanese and too “Japanese” for the Americans. But within this dissonance lay her calling — she realized that women’s education could become the key to Japan’s true transformation, deeper than the mere import of machines and railways.

The founding of Tsuda Juku in 1900 was an act of courage and a quiet revolution. It was not only about teaching English or arithmetic. Umeko wanted to give Japanese women something they had been denied for centuries — the freedom to choose, the autonomy to decide their own paths, and above all, the right to education. Her dream was larger than herself, yet deeply personal. In her students, she saw the little girl she once had been: lost, uncertain, yet hungry for knowledge. Her life is a story of courage, of solitude, of a woman who learned to breathe between two worlds in order to create a place where other women could finally begin to write their own stories.

Japan — the 1870s

Ginza Street, Tokyo, in the early 1870s. The air is heavy with the scent of freshly cut timber and coal burning in small workshops, but it carries new aromas as well — waxed leather shoes, floral soaps imported from London, the rich fragrance of coffee, which only a few have yet tasted. On the cobblestones, where just recently there had been only packed sand, unfamiliar sounds now echo: the iron rims of carriage wheels clattering as horses pull them forward, the cries of newspaper boys shouting the latest imperial decrees, and a melody older residents cannot comprehend — a military march played in a Western style, in rhythms foreign to the traditional tones of gagaku.

This was Japan standing on the threshold of modernity, torn between the memory of old Edo and the burning fire of new Meiji ideals. Only a moment ago, it had been a closed country, sealed off by the iron curtain of sakoku, where the class system divided people as mountains and rivers do, and the fate of women was dictated by patriarchal codes — loyalty to one’s husband, obedience to the family, the virtue of silence. Now, however, after the Meiji Restoration, Japan’s world had changed abruptly. Within just a few years, the walls that had kept the country apart from the rest of the world crumbled: the first teachers arrived from America, schools for girls were opened, and the streets buzzed with rumors of new ideas — freedom, equality, education.

But change came at a cost. Although women were slowly beginning to appear in schools and on the pages of newspapers, they remained entangled in the ideology of ryōsai kenbo — the “good wife, wise mother” ideal — which dictated that their worth be measured by obedience and their ability to raise sons. Yet within the salons of Tokyo’s elite, emancipatory movements began to stir; people debated civil rights, Western literature, and whether a woman could be a creator and not just the guardian of the household hearth. The air was thick with tension — a rift between the world of old values and the world yet to come, uncertain but full of promise.

It was within this world of contrasts — between shōji and brick façades, between kimono and corsets, between the old samurai code and the new civil code — that Tsuda Umeko came of age. Japan was like an organism torn between tradition and modernity, and her life became one of the most fascinating examples of how an individual could forge their own path in a time when everything was changing — language, education, the role of women, even the very sense of national identity.

Tsuda Umeko — born 1864

Tsuda Umeko (津田 梅子) was born on December 31, 1864, at a moment when Japan stood on the brink of an epochal transformation. It was the final year of the Genji era — the last breath of the turbulent bakumatsu period, when the power of the Tokugawa shogunate was crumbling under the weight of internal uprisings and Western pressure. In Edo, the bustling capital of the shogunate, a little girl was born whose life would become a symbolic tale of Japan’s passage from the world of closed gates into modernity.

The Tsuda family belonged to the lower ranks of the samurai class, placing them within a social structure still firmly based on the four traditional pillars: shi-nō-kō-shō (士農工商) — samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Umeko’s father, Tsuda Sen, was an extraordinary man: a samurai who, over time, became a reformer, an educator, and an advocate for modern learning. Raised in his youth in the spirit of bushidō, he carried within him the memory of hierarchy and discipline, yet he was also fascinated by the West and its sciences. In him, seemingly opposing worlds coexisted — the traditional warrior ethos and an insatiable curiosity for what was new, unknown, and full of promise (another figure of the time, equally open to change, was: The Man of Brass and Stars – How the Brilliant Inventor Hisashige Tanaka Thrust Samurai Japan into Modernity).

The atmosphere of the Tsuda household was therefore one of paradox. On one hand, there was the sternness and hierarchy typical of samurai families — respect for elders, the duty to study calligraphy, and knowledge of the classical Chinese texts. On the other hand, Sen and his wife, Hatsuko, surrounded their children with care and encouraged them to broaden their horizons. Even then, Tsuda Sen was fascinated by Western natural sciences, and his encounters with foreigners in Edo left a deep impression on him. Despite modest financial means, he strove to provide his children with an education suited to the demands of a new era, sensing that Japan stood on the threshold of an immense transformation.

In this environment, little Umeko grew up — a girl with lively eyes and a quick mind. The first five years of her life coincided with a time when Japan had yet to decide whether to remain closed to the world or open its doors wide. In Edo, debates raged; foreigners began appearing on the streets, and news of Western inventions stirred the imagination. In the Tsuda household, a child could witness traditional attire and rituals alongside tales of steamships, electricity, and alphabets unlike kana. It was a world suspended between past and future, and from her earliest years, Umeko absorbed this tension.

When Umeko was only a few years old, the thunder of change resounded through Japan, reaching into every home. In 1868, when she was four years old, the Boshin War broke out, and the Tokugawa shogunate fell, giving way to the rule of the young Emperor Mutsuhito (more about the bakumatsu war here: The Republic of Ezo – A One-of-a-Kind Samurai Democracy and about the fall of the Tokugawa here: The Tokugawa Shōgunate After the Fall of Samurai Japan – How They Survived the 20th Century and What They Do Today?). Edo, the city of her birth, was soon renamed Tokyo — the “Eastern Capital” — and became the heart of the new Meiji era.

The Tsuda family, once part of the old order, had to find their place in a world where samurai privileges had lost their meaning. At home, conversations revolved around new reforms, the abolition of the right to wear swords, taxes, and how to gain new skills to survive. For the little girl, these were her first lessons in understanding that the world she lived in was a world of constant change, where nothing could ever be taken for granted.

Umeko’s childhood unfolded during a time of profound transformation in Japan. At home, there was an atmosphere of openness toward learning — her father encouraged his daughter to study the basics of etiquette and simple poems, but he was also deeply interested in foreign languages and modern education. These interests eventually led to five-year-old Umeko being selected among the group of girls sent to the United States as part of the Iwakura Mission. Her father believed that the future of Japan belonged to those who could speak with the West, understand its sciences, and embrace its technologies. One could say that before the little girl had even learned to write fluently in Japanese, destiny was already preparing her to become one of the symbols of a meeting between two worlds.

Her early years were thus the antechamber to a great journey — both literal and spiritual — a quest for her own identity, caught between Japan and the West. In her childhood memories remained the image of a home where tradition met reform, where old tales of samurai honor mingled with a growing fascination for Western education and technological wonders.

Education in America — A Shock

When six-year-old Umeko left Yokohama in 1871, she did not yet understand that she was leaving behind not just her home, but the entire world she had known. Etched into her memory was the image of the port — the gray sheen of the water, the rhythmic creaking of mooring ropes, and the slender silhouettes of the sailing ships that were to carry her into the future. She was the youngest of five Japanese girls sent to the United States as part of the Iwakura shisetsu (岩倉使節団), the great modernization mission of the Meiji era. As the ship pulled away from the shore, Umeko clung tightly to the hand of her father, Sen, but only a few days later, she was entrusted to the care of complete strangers. From that moment on, her childhood would belong to another continent, another language, another system of values.

Upon arriving in Washington, she was adopted by the family of Charles Lanman, an American lawyer, writer, and artist. The Lanmans, fascinated by Japan, gladly took little Umeko under their care, treating her both as a daughter and as a “living symbol” of the exotic East. Their home was filled with the scent of wood, heavy drapes, and oil paint; landscapes of the Potomac adorned the walls, and the library bowed under the weight of books on history, art, and politics. For Umeko, this was a world entirely unlike that of tatami floors, sliding shōji, and the subtle fragrance of incense. Here reigned heavy American furniture, the sound of the piano, and the echo of the English language, which she could not yet understand at all.

The beginning was difficult. Umeko — a small, quiet girl — faced a world that spoke, behaved, and even ate in ways she had never seen before. Learning the language was like climbing a steep cliff: the letters of the alphabet seemed an incomprehensible tangle of symbols, and the sounds of the words resembled music whose melody she had to absorb without a score. The Lanmans hired a governess for her, and later enrolled her in a girls’ school. There, surrounded by American peers, she encountered Western education for the first time: arithmetic, literature, geography, and, above all, the radical notion that girls could and should be educated in the same way as boys.

This must have been a profound shock. In Meiji-era Japan, women were still largely confined to the home; girls’ education, if it existed at all, consisted of calligraphy, waka poetry, and domestic skills. In nineteenth-century America, however, Umeko was suddenly confronted with the idea that a woman could be a full participant in public life — she could speak, decide, and have ambitions of her own. In the Lanman household, she watched as the hostess engaged in long discussions about politics at the table, and as women in literary societies debated books and the future of the world.

For the little Japanese girl, this was a world both fascinating and utterly foreign. Over time, she learned English so well that she began to think in it. She loved to read — she devoured the classics of English literature, American poetry, and scientific works. Yet the deeper she immersed herself in this new culture, the more acutely she felt that she would never stop being Japanese. Representatives of the Japanese embassy often visited her at the Lanmans’ home, reminding her that she was part of a greater mission — a living symbol of Japan’s future.

As she grew, she became increasingly aware of her dual identity. Within the school walls, she was “Miss Tsuda,” a delicate, exceptionally gifted Asian girl whose accent gradually faded almost entirely. But inside, she fought a quiet battle: the tension between the freedom America gave her and the knowledge that one day she would have to return to a country where women were expected to remain silent, modest, and obedient.

This inner conflict shaped her personality. Even as a teenager, she began to understand that women’s education in Japan — neglected, marginalized, treated as an unnecessary luxury — was the key to changing the country’s future. She might not have had the words for it yet, but she felt that her own experience was more than a personal story. She was like a bridge between two worlds: Japan had given her family and childhood, America had given her her coming of age, and one day she would have to find a way to unite these two poles.

By the time she was fifteen, she spoke fluent English, read Shakespeare in the original, played the piano, and knew American poetry by heart. Meanwhile, her peers in Japan were learning how to fold a kimono flawlessly and manage a household. Umeko was beginning to understand that her return to her homeland would be more than a personal choice — she would be returning as someone who possessed knowledge inaccessible to most women in Japan.

It was in Washington, in the quiet rooms of the Lanman home, that her calling was born. She did not yet know that in a few short years she would become a pioneer of women’s education in Japan. But even then, she sensed that her life did not belong to her alone.

Return to Japan — A Rift

When eighteen-year-old Tsuda Umeko (津田梅子) stood on the deck of the ship in the port of San Francisco, watching the receding shoreline, she felt as though she were leaving her true home. The Japan she was returning to had become for her an almost abstract notion — a hazy memory of the scent of wood and tatami, her mother’s smile, and the glow of festival lanterns she had seen as a five-year-old child. After more than a decade in the United States, she had grown into a completely different world: she spoke and thought in English, knew Byron and Shakespeare’s verses by heart, understood how to set a Western table, and could hold her own in conversation with American intellectuals. Japan, on the other hand, remained almost mythical — a country where she was born, but which had faded into the fog of childhood amnesia.

After a long journey, the ship docked at Yokohama port. Umeko remembered that moment for the rest of her life. Instead of the exotic land scented with incense that lingered faintly in her childhood memories, she found a Japan trying to be someone else. The port was alive with motion — on the quay stood men in European suits and stiff-brimmed bowlers, samurai without katana, who had recently lost their privileges yet still wore their old kamishimo, fishmongers in worn happi coats, and above the crowd fluttered the Western flags of trading companies.

This was a country in the midst of transformation — torn between two extremes. The Meiji Restoration had been underway for fourteen years. The samurai system had been dismantled, the capital moved to Tokyo, and the shogunate was now history. The government feverishly modernized the state in the image of the West, yet society struggled to keep pace. In teahouses, beside the familiar scent of tatami, stood French chairs, and on the tables lay silver cutlery — which no one quite knew how to use.

For Umeko, this world was alien in every sense. Though Japanese by birth, she felt more American. She thought in English, wrote in English, and was embarrassed by her awkward Japanese. Even the way she moved bore something Western — a straight spine, long strides, a quiet confidence that, in the eyes of traditional Japanese society, might easily be mistaken for immodesty.

The most painful encounter, however, was with her family. Her father, Tsuda Sen, who had sent her on this journey as a pioneer of women’s education, now expected Umeko to become a role model for other Japanese women. Yet her relatives had their own ideas about how she should live. In a culture still deeply rooted in the model of ryōsai kenbo (良妻賢母) — the “good wife, wise mother” ideal — a young woman was supposed to prepare for marriage, obey her husband, and tend to the home. Umeko could not reconcile herself with these expectations. In the United States, she had learned that a woman could study the sciences, conduct her own research, choose her husband, or even… never marry at all if she so wished. In Japan, all of this sounded like heresy.

The First Months — A Time of Deep Isolation

The first months were for her a period of profound isolation. Finding a common language — both literally and metaphorically — was nearly impossible. When she tried to talk with her peers, she felt as though she belonged to another world entirely. They dreamed of good marriages; she dreamed of education and science. They knew passages of Genji monogatari by heart; she recited Milton’s poetry. People looked at her with suspicion — on the one hand, she was a source of pride, having traveled and studied in America; on the other, they saw her as “too Western,” as though she had lost her “true Japaneseness.”

During these days, Umeko began to question her own identity. Who was she? A Japanese woman raised in a foreign land? An American born in Japan? Or perhaps someone in between — a woman who did not fully belong to either world? In letters to her American guardians, she wrote of her loneliness and described Japan as a “foreign homeland.”

This inner conflict became the axis around which her entire life revolved. Umeko knew one thing: she could not return to the role of the quiet, obedient daughter and future wife. She had not spent more than a decade in America just to forget what freedom of thought meant. She had to find a way to reconcile two worlds — Japan, whose heart still beat to the rhythm of tradition, and the West, which had entered her soul like a strong, invigorating wind.

Her Work in Japan

When Umeko Tsuda returned to Japan in 1882, after years spent in the United States, she felt as though she had stepped onto another planet. She was eighteen, carrying vivid memories of wide American streets, the lively buzz of coeducational schools, freedom of thought, and equal rights among students — and suddenly found herself in a country still living by the rules of a fading era. Japan was already undergoing profound changes during the Meiji period, but its reforms had not reached everywhere equally. At universities, the first students were exploring Western science, modern financial institutions and factories were emerging, and railway lines were being built across Tokyo. Yet the status of women remained almost unchanged: their world usually ended at the threshold of the home, and society’s expectations were always the same — to be an obedient daughter, a faithful wife, and a good mother.

This clash of worlds was brutal for Umeko. In Washington, she had seen female teachers and university lecturers, read essays written by women, and participated in discussions about literature and science. In Japan, she discovered that many of her peers knew almost nothing of literature beyond the most revered Chinese classics, while girls from wealthier families were mainly taught embroidery, the tea ceremony, and a few rules of polite etiquette. “I felt as though I had returned to a country that did not understand me,” she wrote in one of her letters to her former guardians in the U.S. It was then that a conviction began to take root within her — a belief that would become her life’s mission: that true freedom for women begins with education.

Her first steps were uncertain and full of frustration. Although Umeko was fluent in English, she struggled with written Japanese — years in America had left her unfamiliar with kanji, and she had to relearn her native language almost from scratch. Yet she soon found work as an English teacher at the Peeresses’ School, an elite institution for the daughters of aristocrats. There, for the first time, she met Japanese girls from the highest social circles who, despite having access to the finest materials, were raised in an atmosphere of obedience to men and tradition. In their eyes, Umeko saw something familiar: a quiet longing for a world offering more than simply preparing to become someone’s wife.

Around this time, she began to connect with other women who also believed that Japan needed deeper change. She reunited with pioneers like Yamakawa Sutematsu — one of her companions from the Iwakura Mission who had also returned from the U.S. — and Ume Hirano, who would later co-found a women’s school. Together, they held informal gatherings, exchanging experiences from the West, discussing women’s education, and imagining ways to plant the seeds of a new way of thinking in Japan.

In 1889, thanks to the support of her old American friends, Umeko once again crossed the ocean — this time to study at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. There, surrounded by the latest scientific achievements, she witnessed firsthand how women in the West were becoming increasingly independent and self-assured. By the time she returned to Japan in 1892, she knew exactly what she wanted: to create a school that would give Japanese women a real chance at an education on a world-class level.

In 1900, she founded Tsuda Juku — a small private English-language school for girls that, over time, became one of the most prestigious women’s institutions in the country. Her vision was clear: it was not merely about teaching language or practical skills, but about cultivating minds capable of independent thought. “I want Japanese women to be conscious individuals who can decide their own lives,” she would say.

But the path to realizing this vision was fraught with obstacles. Conservative circles accused her of spreading a “Western contagion,” claiming she was destroying traditional values and filling women’s heads with “unnecessary dreams.” She was often ostracized, regarded by many as an “eccentric” detached from Japanese reality. Financial difficulties abounded: for years, the school survived largely on donations from American philanthropists, and Umeko frequently sacrificed her own health to secure funds for scholarships for talented students.

Despite these struggles, Tsuda Juku grew steadily in strength. Its graduates began to appear in Japanese public life — as teachers, translators, and civil servants. They started to change the language in which women were spoken about in Japan. Slowly, step by step, Umeko’s influence spread wider, and her school became a place where a new definition of womanhood was born: educated, aware, and courageous.

Umeko’s Personal Life

She never married. In letters to her “American mother,” Mrs. Adeline Lanman, she would politely but firmly dismiss recurring suggestions of matchmaking. In 1883, when relatives and friends proposed the hand of a respected Christian officer, she wrote directly, asking them “not to bring up the matter again.” She was young, but the decision already seemed fully formed: if she was to bear the mission of educating Japanese women for the modern age, she needed the freedom that marriage, in those times, rarely offered. It was a choice of conviction — and a price: long evenings of solitude, misunderstandings with those around her, and the awareness of being “inconvenient” within the framework of ryōsai kenbo.

With her students, Umeko could be as unyielding as steel and as warm as home — all at once. In the classroom, she demanded perfection: flawless pronunciation (“Once more!” she would repeat until the sound was right), rigorous use of the dictionary “cover to cover,” logical consistency in argument. Yet if a student truly applied herself, Umeko blossomed: she could listen patiently, explain thoroughly, and rejoice when someone managed to outargue her. After lessons, she was different: petite (barely over 140 cm tall), usually dressed in a kimono and hakama, with a pocket watch at her waist; she laughed easily, mixing English with Japanese, living simply, almost ascetically. The austerity of Bryn Mawr — her second alma mater, rooted in Quaker ideals — and her own Anglican faith had instilled in her a distaste for luxury: any resources she had were directed to the school, scholarships, and books.

Her encounters with men and politics brought little fulfillment. At Itō Hirobumi’s household, she served as translator and private tutor; from behind the scenes, she witnessed the carefree indulgence of the elite — their patronage of courtesans, the way “affairs of state” unfolded in rhythm with men’s pleasures. It disillusioned her — not with politics itself, but with a certain style of masculinity. This disappointment reinforced her resolve: she would not devote her life to marriage but to education.

Her health, too, bore the cost. From 1906, she suffered from asthma; by 1917, diabetes had set in — in her journal from June of that year, she recorded a thought that reads like the prayer of an educator: “For a new forest to grow, the seed must first break.” In 1919, after a stroke, she withdrew from the daily management of the school, passing the reins to younger hands. That same year, she moved into a new home on Gotenyama, where a close circle of collaborators — former students, Alice Bacon, and the steadfast Anna C. Hartshorne — visited her regularly. Hartshorne, who after the 1923 earthquake traveled to America to raise funds for the school’s reconstruction, was her most loyal ally — almost a sister. By then, Umeko looked upon her work from what seemed like halfway beyond the veil: the school would endure through community, not through any single individual. In 1929, just months before her death, she adopted her nephew, Tsuda Ma (Makoto, nicknamed “Shin”) — caring for the continuity of the family name and household was, for her, a form of responsibility not at odds with her choice of solitude.

Her letters and notes — almost exclusively in English — reveal a determined and resilient person: they speak of small triumphs (the first donation from Philadelphia, a scholarship for a talented girl from the countryside), flashes of anger at mediocrity, moments of doubt when “old habits” dampened her students’ enthusiasm, and the returning hope when a mind lit up in class. She wrote openly of her exhaustion — how the school was “greater than herself,” how she sometimes ached at being “ever so slightly foreign” to the language of her own country. Yet it was precisely this sense of estrangement that allowed her to be a true bridge: explaining Japan to America, showing America to Japan, and revealing freedom to women.

This is how her students remembered her: a petite woman with a piercing gaze who was never late, corrected pronunciation without leniency, and, when she finally heard a sentence spoken confidently, in one’s own voice, would smile widely and lovingly. In that smile was everything: her choice, her sacrifice, her faith, and the long, demanding love of a teacher for her students — a love that outlived her.

The Legacy of Umeko Tsuda

In Umeko Tsuda’s life, there were no easy victories, and many of the achievements now attributed to her name were born in solitude, doubt, and a quiet sense of alienation. She was a pioneer, yet rarely felt like a conqueror. Her vision of a Japan where women could develop intellectually and spiritually alongside men was, in the Meiji era, almost utopian. And yet she managed to plant that vision — not through manifestos, but by living her values with quiet, unwavering consistency.

Her legacy lives on today in Tsuda University, in the hundreds of women who, through her ideals, gained the courage to think independently and shape their own paths. But her influence extends beyond the story of a single institution. In a sense, Umeko anticipated challenges that Japan would only later confront — the question of a woman’s place in society, the boundaries between tradition and modernity, and the personal cost of defying social expectations.

Interestingly, contemporary studies of her life reveal a more complex figure than the one portrayed for decades. She was not merely a modest reformer — she could be stubborn, exacting toward herself and others, and her religious convictions often placed her at odds with authorities and peers alike. Her letters reveal a deeply sensitive femininity, paired with an uncompromising determination. This tension — between delicacy and resolve — could be seen as the defining thread of her life.

In our world, where women’s education is often taken for granted, it is easy to forget that for Umeko it was an act of courage — a choice made against entrenched structures. Her life reminds us that social progress is never given, never permanent. It demands individuals brave enough to see beyond their time and steadfast enough to hold their ground even when misunderstood. Umeko Tsuda did not change Japan with a single gesture. But through her quiet, persistent work, she created a space where new generations of independent women could grow. And that, in the long view of history, is one of the most enduring transformations of all.

>> SEE ALSO SIMILAR ARTICLES:

The Unyielding Courage of Higuchi Ichiyo: A Solitary Rebellion Against the Oppression of Women in Japan

Psychological Landscapes of Trauma in Contemporary Ukiyo-e – The Hyperaesthetics of Pain in the Paintings of Natsuko Tanihara

Born in hell, buried in Jōkanji – what have we done to the thousands of Yoshiwara women?

Japanese Hell Jigoku in the Colors of Ukiyo-e: Terror, Boiled Tongues, Fear of Women, and a Proper Demonic Administration

The Invisible Woman – Life as a Samurai’s Wife

"Strong Japanese Women"

see book by the author

of the page

    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

Write us...

Ciechanów, Polska

dr.imyon@gmail.com

___________________

inari.smart

Would you like to share your thoughts or feedback about our website or app? Leave us a message, and we’ll get back to you quickly. We value your perspective!