Central RED – FINDING DIFFERENT JAPANS THROUGH WALK JAPAN LTD
Join us Wednesday, July 14
5:30 p.m. – dinner; 6 p.m. – presentation. Boat Moore Weller Rooms, Maytag Student Center Cost: $15, cash bar available
Walk Japan provides authentic and enjoyable tours to discover Japan, its people, society, and culture. Beginning in 1992, they were the first to successfully introduce the real Japan, geographically and culturally, that often remains inaccessible for most visitors to the country. Since then, Walk Japan has created more original tours throughout Japan and been widely recognized for its work, including selection by National Geographic as one of the 200 Best Adventure Travel Companies on Earth. This course will root around in the origins and development of a company with defined goals well beyond those of a traditional travel company. It led Tom to versions of Japan vastly different from the ones he grew up with.
Tom was born into a family with connections to China rather than Japan. All grandparents and one pair of great-grandparents were China missionaries. His parents were also professionally engaged with China, which led to imprisonment during World War II by the Japanese. Tom’s father was a diplomat and accepted a post in Japan where they stayed for 5 ½ years. This background led to Tom becoming interested in Japan, and to a PhD in modern Japanese history followed by university positions mainly in Asia from 1979 to 2008: Japan, Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong.