Age: 28
Hometown: Poole, England
Occupation: Video Game Localizer

One of the reasons for the surge in popularity of video games is their power to transcend cultural and national barriers. Behind the scenes making this a reality are people like Hayden Hughes, who use their cultural awareness to tailor the games to specific markets.

Case in point: “We had a job for a Japanese girlie rhythm game, and the voices they used for the characters were really high-pitched and annoying,” he says. “Obviously, this wouldn’t go over well in the UK, America, France, etc.”
As a game localization manager based in Tokyo, Hughes had to first change all the voices to more pleasing alternatives, and then figure out a way to explain the change to the game makers in a way that wouldn’t offend anyone.

“Catering to European publishers, some of them have rather strange standards, such as not including the word ‘love’ in games aimed at a young audience,” he says. “That made it pretty hard when the central theme of one of the games was love.”

Much of Hughes’ job involves toning down Japanese games. “There was one we were doing that included a 14-year-old girl trying to impress a 50-year-old guy with her makeup, as she liked him,” he recalls. “That obviously wouldn’t be looked kindly upon in the West by parents…”

www.uniconpro.co.jp

 
Age: 63
Hometown: Brooklyn
Occupation: Natural Healing Practitioner

“We cannot stop the aging process,” concedes Daniel Babu. “But with proper care we can slow it down. In fact, there are two ages: our biological age, which you can never change, and our physical and mental age, which we can do a lot about.”

“I have found that aging is a truly beautiful experience. In a way it is like everything coming together,” notes Babu. “It is like now you got a real understanding or, as they say in the Caribbean, an ‘overstanding,’ of how things really work.”

Such wisdom comes from Babu’s lengthy study of macrobiotics, Caribbean medicine, and Eastern healing arts like Chinese kampo and yakuzen—cooking with healing foods, fruits, nuts and herbs.

“People say, ‘I don’t have time or know how to cook.’ But proper cooking and eating are a central and crucial part of the recreation of our vital life energies,” he says. “Knowing these things is a cornerstone of a real life insurance program—of preventing bad health and illness.”

Babu sees natural healing as much more than a 9-5 job, instead describing it as his “lifework.” In the past few years, he has run yakuzen cooking workshops, and next year he’ll organize Dub Plate, which looks to combine Eastern medicinal cooking with traditional Caribbean cuisine and reggae music.

Daniel Babu can be contacted at 090-3819-4627.

 
Age: 29
Hometown: Toronto
Occupation: Solo Aerial Tissue Artist

“I can’t say when I started in the circus industry. It’s just what I have always done,” says Ginger Griep-Ruiz, who arrived in Tokyo six months ago to perform in the new Cirque du Soleil show Zed. “My mother was a trapeze artist, and my father was a fire-eater, sword-swallower, clown, magician and escape artist.”

With a pedigree like that, it’s little wonder the Toronto native chose to attend the Main Space School of Circus Arts and wound up in the employ of Montreal’s whimsical, globe-trotting performance troupe. She joined Cirque at age 22. “I will never forget the feeling of arriving at the company headquarters,” she says. “It was huge and full of action.”

Griep-Ruiz’ work entails dancing, swinging and spiraling midair while suspended by a silk ribbon (tissue). “Being an acrobat/aerialist means I must simultaneously act with respect towards my apparatus (it can be temperamental), listen to my body (small injuries can be just as debilitating as big ones), invest trust in my partner (the technician who manipulates the motor that raises and lowers the tissue), hit my cues (music and staging), while engaging the public and enjoying myself,” she says. “It sounds overwhelming but it’s not… it’s fun!”

www.cirquedusoleil.com

 
Ages: 29 & 28
Hometowns: Wiltshire, England & Seattle
Occupations: Cofounders, SomethingDrastic

On May 24, 2006, over 36 million people tuned in to watch Taylor Hicks win the most-watched American Idol finale of the show’s eight seasons. By contrast, when pop star Jane Zhang appeared on the televised singing contest Supergirl a year earlier, she had an audience of over 400 million.

Zhang is “China’s biggest and most successful music act,” says Robert Michael Poole (bottom left), cofounder of SomethingDrastic management agency, the singer’s official representative in Japan. “We are the only company aimed at building a bridge between China and Japan, musically.”

“We started by managing Chinese acts here in Japan and have now begun promoting Japanese artists in China starting in Macau,” says Poole’s business partner, John Toru Rankin. This involves the thankless task of accompanying such singers as Double to five-star resorts in tropical locales—but someone’s gotta do it.