In his 1971 song "Imagine," John Lennon asks listeners to imagine living in a world where all mankind can live together in peace. Speaking recently before Princess Hisako at an event in Tokyo organized by the Asiatic Society of Japan, Chuk Besher asked attendees to imagine the same.

Besher had come to talk about social diversity in Japan. The nation, he says, is more diverse and multicultural than most Japanese know or would care to admit. With a little imagination, people can come to accept others who look, think and act differently.

Besher was born in Kobe in 1962 to stateless Russian refugee parents. He received Japanese nationality at birth but is Caucasian, which means everyone assumes he's Western.