Takumi Kitamoto Biography

After having worked for 10 years as a financial journalist in Japan, I left my position at Nikkei to develop my career in London, England. Over the next two years, I will be investigating the cultural differences and lifestyles between Japan and the United Kingdom. I will be looking at the economics, history and sociological divides between the Japanese form of capitalist culture and its western counterpart.

Journalism is about asking questions and without such investigation, there exists an information gap. I want to fill that gap with knowledge and create a bridge across which my readers can cross to gain a better understanding of the societies they can see across the divide.

I was born in Wakayama prefecture which lies along the side of the Japanese Pacific Ocean coast. Growing up in a small town, my first sense of a divide was between my home and the big cities of Japan. In small towns like my birthplace, it is usual for people to grow up, go to High School, maybe a local university and then move into a local job. I wanted to travel further in the world. There are no big industries in my hometown, the inhabitants are not the most wealthy members of Japanese society and my first development of an economic awareness was an understanding of a rural area and what the divide was between that and urban areas.

I was inspired by a teacher at my high school. Through his inspiration, I took the opportunity to go to the National University of Wakayama. Maybe not the most famous education institution in the world but, for me, being at university was not just about a curriculum or status, I saw the opportunity to learn from my interactions with the community of students and teachers. I learnt not only subjects but also other people’s perspectives on life. In this experience, I realised that what was common knowledge amongst people from urban backgrounds was not necessarily shared by the people from rural environments.

It was at this point that I realized that just ‘knowing’ or ‘not knowing’ can make a huge difference in life and business situations. Building on this growing awareness of an information gap, I worked to develop a career as a journalist once I left university.

After leaving the National University of Wakayama, I joined the Japanese economic newspaper agency “Nkkei.inc”. In my 10 years there this idea about information gaps seemed to me to be a very fruitful area of investigation. I also realised that such divides are not just about Japanese society but exist throughout the world and that these differences are crucial to understanding as they shape how we form a global culture.

Seeing that my local experience of the distance between rural and urban Japan had driven my career, I saw an obvious next step in investigating this separation on a much wider level. This led me to take the opportunity to come to London, to learn more English and improve my understanding of the world beyond Japan. I knew I had to cross the divide myself if I was to be able to explain anything about what such differences mean.

Now I am facing the information gap between Japan and the world. I am investigating different values, different social structures, different management structures and most importantly, a different way of living. I will be producing articles and media material about this experience under the management of HRTVSH Limited.