Shinto and the surprise of finding your place in the world in Japan with Dr. Nyri A. Bakkalian

Shinto is something we live with every day here in Japan, and we often do notice it, though we go to the shrine at New Year or when we are sightseeing. Dr. Nyri A. Bakkalian shares her experience of finding her place in the world on the day she wandered into the Osaki Hachiman shrine in 2005.  Listen to hear what happened next! 

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In this episode you’ll hear:

• Nyri’s upbringing as a third culture kid with strong ties to the Armenian diaspora and Armenian protestant church clergy 
• What set Nyri on the path to finding her place in the world which turned out to be in Japan
• Some of the different kinds of Shinto practitioners and how we can be respectful today at shrines with the restrictions of Covid-19
• Nyri’s upcoming book set in Ishinomaki just after the tsunami in 2011

About Dr. Nyri A. Bakkalian:

Dr. Nyri A. Bakkalian is a freelance writer, recovering academic, raconteur, out and proud lesbian, and staff writer for Unseen Japan. Her PhD thesis focused on the Boshin War in the Tohoku region. She is the author of the 2020 novel Grey Dawn: A Tale of Abolition and Union and the upcoming November 2022 novel Confluence: A Person-Shaped Story. She hosts the podcast Friday Night History and co-hosts the podcast Cleyera: Conversations on Shinto. The secret to her success is Arabic coffee. She misses Sendai daily.

Links of things mentioned in this episode:

Confluence: A Person-Shaped Story, Nov 2022 https://balance-of-seven.square.site/ 

Cleyera Podcast https://anchor.fm/cleyerapodcast/ 

Connect with Nyri:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/riversidewings/ 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/riversidewings 

Itchio: https://riversidewings.itch.io/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/riversidewings 

Connect with Jayne:

PodLaunch with Jayne: https://www.jaynenakata.com/podcastconsulting