Hello, all. Name’s Paul — I’m an American expat working in Jakarta, Indonesia. I got interested in learning about Japan, its language and its culture after hearing stories from my mom and her siblings about growing up on Yokota AFB (we’re an Air Force family). After one uninspiring semester of Japanese in college and stop-start efforts at learning on my own, I’m knuckling down with TextFugu and — so far — getting good results.

My goal is to live and work in Japan (preferably at a newspaper, but that’s negotiable) and have a chance to experience the culture at a deeper level. I’ve worked at two papers in Asia and been to more countries as a visitor, but no place excites and challenges (not to mention frustrates) me quite like Japan.