Naomi is a freelance journalist who's lived and worked across Asia and the US.
Naomi Gingold has lived and worked across Asia and the US. Her reporting covers a wide range of areas but specialties include: technology, international affair/politics, health, and the arts. She also has a background in music production and will be always on the lookout for the perfect bridge to play Pooh Sticks.
This is why the head of Indian Affairs offered up a Colorado reservation as a site to imprison Japanese Americans during World War II.
Utada Hikaru was the first Japanese musician to do it all. Sing, write and be a pop star. She quickly became one of the country's most successful musicians — a position no one has managed to take from her.
In Buddhist-majority Myanmar, sometimes it's better to be an atheist than a Muslim.
Around the world, Aung San Suu Kyi is seen as the symbol of the fight for freedom in Myanmar. But inside the country, she shares the spotlight with her father, who won independence from Britain but was felled by an assassin.
Nearly five years after the tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan, thousands of people still haven't been able to put their lives back together. So a Japanese Buddhist monk developed with a pop-up cafe to cater to their needs.
A male lawmaker apologized after trying to put down an assertive female colleague. A year later, though, little has changed.
Japanese women who aspire to both a career and a family have long considered their best options to be leaving the country, working at a startup or finding work at an international company in Japan. But even then, it can come down to who your manager is.
Japanese divemaster Ryohei Tokumasu lost friends and almost all his possessions in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. He's spent the past four years trying to help others recover what's important to them.
In ancient times, it's said that brewing sake was a women's craft. But for the past few hundred years women have been forbidden from brewing. That's changing in big ways.
In April, Shibuya became the first area in Tokyo — and all of Japan — to recognize same-sex marriage. But attitudes on LGBT rights are just starting to change in Japan and one startup is trying to push that conversation forward.
When you think of farming, what typically comes to mind is rolling pastures and open skies. But in Tokyo, you can think subway tracks and grow lights. The transit authority has opened a farm.