Contributors

* Yaeko Mitsumori (The Recycling Champs) is a freelance writer. She previously was a Tokyo correspondent for BridgeNews covering the Japanese IT market, including communications, computers, broadcasting, software, the Internet and technology. Before that, she was an assistant editor at Asahi Evening News in Tokyo and for several other Japanese-language publications. Mitsumori has a master's degree in public administration (MPA) with an emphasis in press, politics and public policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She speaks Japanese and English.



* Sara Harris (Two of a Kind -- Man and Ape) is a Chiba-based freelance journalist. She has covered biotechnology in Japan for a year and a half, including the cover story on bioventures in Japan in the October 2001 issue of J@pan Inc. All of the animals she communicated with for this month's piece were human. No chimpanzees were harmed in the writing of this article. Please do not feed the author.






* Michael Turner (Just-in-Time Wine) is a seven-year resident of Tokyo. He divides his time between writing, teaching, editing, occasional dabbling in software, and helping his wife run a ryokan (Japanese-style inn).
Turner is a 20-plus-year veteran of the computer industry, a topic on which he can sometimes be explosively bitter, especially if you talk to him too early in the morning.
Turner often shares computer time with his cat (pictured above), who had this to say about his owner: "I don't know how I get any work done with this guy around -- always grabbing my mouse."




* Wil Fennell (Faux Four Trump J'Elvis) has lived in ancient capitals of Japan since 1993. After six quiet years in Nara, he now lives in Kyoto and teaches in the social sciences department at Ritsumeikan University. Before coming to Japan, Fennell worked in communications for an international trade association based in St. Louis, Missouri. His own Beatlemania began at age three, when he was singing I Wanna Hold Your Hand instead of London Bridge. In addition to his pursuits in Fake Fab Fourology, he enjoys traveling around Hokkaido most summers with his wife, Kayo, whose own opinion about the Beatles ("I'm not interested") provides a healthy balance in the household.