Legend of Crossing Cultures & Turning Corners, Karen Hill Anton
“I wouldn’t burden myself or create anxiety about the past. I tend not to live in the past”
Introducing Karen Hill Anton, legend of crossing cultures and turning corners.
In Karen’s book ‘The View From Breast Pocket Mountain’ before I even got to page 50 she had introduced me to her young relationship with Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22, hanging out with Neneh Cherry (childhood hero of mine). Now, I am a sloooooow reader - I like that about myself - I read about 10 books a year and these days listen to more, but I decided to purchase Karen’s book and dip in before our conversation. I couldn’t put it down. From the first page, that we don’t reveal - it has you hooked. And hooked you should be.
I am genuinely changed through our conversation - I just loved listening to her talking about being a mother and taking the next steps, humbling herself to being both inside and outside a culture and living a full life in the Japanese countryside. Karen is beautiful and one of the most wonderful things I love about being a woman is how we can traverse with ease across intelligent meaningful conversations with depth and skill to talking about beauty and today was no exception - before we hit record, we both paused and topped up our lipstick!
We didn’t even touch on the fact that Karen almost became a dancer and taught modern dance and at the end of the conversation, Karen reads from her novel; a wonderful chapter about her relationship with her neighbours - I mean let’s just drop MC hammer in here shall we (I also drop a tasty tidbit in here about my history with the Hammer).
In terms of brilliance - you can’t touch this. (See what I did there?)
The questions we DON’T have about our parents and how many stories live in our imagination
We talk about imagination and living in the past and the burden of creating anxiety in our fantasies - brilliant coaching fodder! Curiosity and pragmatism
She was raised in a time when there was no imaginings about not respecting a parent. It was simply not an option
The power and influence of good teachers and mentors and how important the people who will see and witness your potential are. This comes up in a future conversation too (look out for May) AND in the conversation with Leza Lowitz
DREAMS - opening the edges of our dreams through contact with people who can open our dreams
What happens when she - she just couldn’t get enough
Following what’s in front of you and being swept away - not reckless, not crazy, not even edgy but unafraid
Corners - going around a corner and not being afraid and not knowing what’s around the corner
The joy of becoming a mother and how she never found having a child limiting, she couldn’t be more grateful for children and all that role created for her
She is absolutely clear in the book about how hard it was on a farm with no running water and toilets they had to empty themselves and 3 young kids - there’s NO BS here
The tragedy of isolation and the joy of community in motherhood
You will have to read the book to get the full dojo experience but Karen teases us with the year they had on a dojo
Being in community in the deep Shizuoka countryside on Japan
How becoming a Japanese Calligraphy 2-dan (basically better than a black-belt) opened Japanese culture up
She stopped being a rebel and what she has to say about standing out and fitting in
Life as a cross-cultural coach columnist
Her life now, her four adult children and her approach to future projects
Where can you find Karen
Instagram @karenhillanton
Website: www.karenhillanton.com
Buy her book here.
Bio
Karen Hill Anton wrote the popular columns “Crossing Cultures” for The Japan Times and “Another Look” for Chunichi Shimbun for fifteen years. She is a cross-cultural competence consultant and coach. Karen lectures widely on her experience of cross-cultural adaptation and raising four bilingual, bicultural children, and she served on the internationalization in education and society advisory councils of Prime Ministers Obuchi and Hashimoto. Her work appears in The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan (Stone Bridge Press). Originally from New York City, she’s achieved second-degree mastery in Japanese calligraphy, and has lived with her husband William Anton in rural Shizuoka since 1975. Her memoir, The View From Breast Pocket Mountain has been awarded The Book Readers Appreciation Group Medallion and she recently won the Gold award in the SPR Awards.
Interested in other legends? You can find all past legends here.