Sayuki [Geisha of Australian nationality]

Born in Melbourne, Australia, she arrived in Japan as an exchange student at the age of fifteen. Upon graduation from a high school and a college in Japan, she was matriculated at the University of Oxford to continue her study and completed her doctorate in social anthropology. Beginning geisha practices in 2007 and made her public debut in December that year. She intends to record the actual geisha life of her own and introduce correctly to the world, from a scholar's viewpoint, what a geisha is in a true sense.

Choi Yang-guk (Korean restaurateur)

Born in 1973. He had been engaged, prior to establishing his own business in 2006, in various fields such as promoting activities for young Korean residents of Japan to get used to the Korea’s ethnic custom, working as a translator for professional baseball players, or developing his career under employment of a large trading firm. He founded the company “Glomar Links”, and opened the restaurant “Edo Gyuyaki – Karaya” in Shimbashi, Tokyo, in March, 2008. His ambition is to extend his restaurant business abroad.

Curtis Patterson (an American koto player)

A native of Illinois, USA, he got his first encounter with koto when attending Cornell University, Iowa. Arriving in Japan, he began learning to play jiuta, which was considered fundamental to the Ikuta-style koto performance, gradually deepening understanding about Japanese traditional music. In 1990, he enrolled himself at the Sawai Koto Institute and was taught by both Tadao Sawai and Kazue Sawai. Since then, he has composed a number of classic and modern pieces. He has been making an effort to achieve a broadened world of koto performance through playing with artists from diversified genres and offering lessons and education on the Japanese 'gagaku' classical music.