Nao

GetHiroshima sat down with PEACE editor Naoko Kono, or Nao as she is known to her friends, for a few minutes as the publication of the second issue approached.

© Flo

Nao's first love is photography, and it's likely that if you've been to any of the local outdoor music festivals that you've seen her running around snapping shots of the action. Her work has been featured in several local exhibitions. Although she enjoys the commercial side of photography, and says that the sheer scale she experienced on a recent road trip in the US had her excited about taking nature shots for the first time, it's capturing people that she really enjoys. A quick flick through the pages of PEACE and you can see that it's people that are central here too.

Nao says that she's always liked the idea of producing a magazine, and decided that after years of looking at and criticizing other publications that she should go for it and make the dream a reality. If PEACE has a concept, it is perhaps to make more people aware of what the people close to her are doing. You can sense that Nao feels lucky to be surrounded by so many interesting, talented and creative friends, and wants to let those in Hiroshima and beyond know about them and their activities.

This creative pool has also helped get PEACE off the ground, with friends helping out (free of charge) with the design, photography, and translation. This is fortunate, as producing, and largely writing a bilingual publication is proving to be more of a challenge than she anticipated - in particular the translation of the slang that peppers the language of many of the people she interviews. It is a challenge that ultimately makes publication day all the more satisfying.

Nao was born in Tokyo, but has lived here in Hiroshima since she was 5. Her grandfather was Korean - she recently received an email from a long lost relative in Korea who had been trying to track down the family - she speaks excellent English, and has many friends from the foreign community here in Hiroshima. It isn't merely this international outlook, however, that made her want to publish a bilingual magazine. Nao had noticed that when her English speaking friends and Japanese speaking friends were getting together, despite the fact that they clearly had a lot in common, the language barrier was stopping them from really communicating their ideas. She sees PEACE as a way of breaking down that barrier and sharing information.

While traveling in the US over the summer, she noticed that she was really doing a lot of the same kind of things she does here in Hiroshima, but in a different setting with different people, making her realize that people are doing their own thing in their own small ways all over the world. Nao says she would like to see PEACE develop into a place where people can read about these people. At some point, recognizing the increasingly international make up of our community, she would also really like to add another language to the magazine.

Finally, it had to be asked, "Why PEACE?"

Anyone who's spent much time here in Hiroshima can appreciate what she means when Nao says, "After living here for over 20 years, "Peace is too much for me!" A perhaps overused word throughout the world, these words ring particularly true in Hiroshima. "It's a cheesy and boring name," but the word has also become part of the vernacular of her friends, so "I both love and hate the word". For Nao, the dual association of the word with Hiroshima and with her friends and favorite things sums up the ethos of the magazine.

The second issue of PEACE is out on Nov 25. Pick it up in bars, cafes and shops all over town.