Hello, My Name is Yuga from Japan.
Now I am a master student leaning peacebuilding studies in Graduate school of Arts and Sciences in University of Tokyo. I’m gonna work in Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 2025. I used to work in United Nations Development Programee as a intern.

I was born in the small island(it’s the one of the most rural area in Japan), Rishiri island in Hokkaido which is the northern part of Japan.

And then, when I graduate from junior high school student, I decided to go out from island to explore new horizon. In my Highschool days, I spend three years in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido prefecture.

Then, I advanced to the Faculty of Law in Chuo University and have started to learn International law. In 2022-2023, I stayed in the UK to study International Development studies as an exchange student.

I am so curious person for all. I’d like to see new people and culture to make my insight more sophisticated!!!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

By using Couchsurfing, I have already conducted a big project to cross European countries from Lisbon to Athens since January 1st to describe my experience into the texts on the taste of travel literature. By writing the book, I would like to describe and tell the diversity in “Europe” and “West” countries through many communication with local people and walking around many cities in Europe like Marco polo!!

I want to meet many cultures and many people with various backgrounds. I believe that the experience on Couchsurfing will become the practice of anthropology to expand my insight to make my academic sense more sophisticated.

Interests

• arts
• culture
• literature
• rock music
• anthropology
• philosophy
• football
• movie
• japan
• beatles
• green
• international law

Music, Movies, and Books

I have a lot of favorite things.

In Music, I love British rock music: the Beatles, David Bowie, Queen, Elton John, Oasis and Radiohead etc…,

My favorite songs:
John Lennon / Watching the Wheels
https://youtu.be/uVXR2LYeFBI
Van Morrison / Crazy Love
https://youtu.be/OIaKy1vM9hs
David Bowie / Life on Mars?
https://youtu.be/AZKcl4-tcuo
Queen / Seven Seas of Rhye
https://youtu.be/FxIo57WURRE
Smile / Doin’ Alright
https://youtu.be/iUPQEbOyVyU
My Chemical Romance / Dead!
https://youtu.be/H48kOqqaWv0

I love reading books and watching movies, which is connected with the insightful contents, so I often read Japan and world literature including poetry mainly in the form of translation into Japanese

Literature: Caravantes, Jane Austin, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Herman Hesse, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Yukio Mishima, and Osamu Dazai

Poetry: Omar Khayyam, Rabindranath Tagore, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Jean Cocteau and Paul Valéry

Philosophy: Socrates, Seneca, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Bataille, Foucault and Kitaro Nishida etc….but those are not the range of my majoring.

Painter: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Jean Honoré Fragonard, Martin Benka, Henry Matisse, Egon Schiele, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Joan Miro, Jean Dubuffet, Salvador Dali, Vaclav Tikal(Prague), René Magritte, Vilmos Huszar(Hungarian) and Gerhard Richter

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

In 2021, I have won the prize of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Japan by suggesting the sustainable model of reducing CO2 in the local areas through point exchange service associated with green energy, criticizing the current situation of environmental policy in Japan.

Teach, Learn, Share

I am learning International Law in Japan.

But recently I feel the lack of awareness of culture or tradition in International Law like SDGs. Here I have began to concentrate on anthropology to look directly at the lives based on various cultures in local area, in which will be connected with the distribution of power to the people in indigenous or ethnic minority people in International dynamics.

Perhaps it also arises from the opportunity I interview with the Karen people, the ethnic minority groups in Myanmar.

What I Can Share with Hosts

The things and experiences as I mentioned above. And I am so interested in the unique character of Japanese culture. So, a little bit I can share about it with you.

I can teach Japanese language and how to cook Japanese food.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom