Professional foodie Yu Nakamura, 32, has always felt like a free spirit, more comfortable off-piste than on, even if that means traversing challenging terrain. She likes variety, diversity and, perhaps most importantly, the unexpected.
As she marks three years living in Thailand this month, Gifu Prefecture-born Nakamura notes that moving from Tokyo to Bangkok has given her more freedom in her career than she had ever dreamed possible.
Arriving in the Southeast Asian country with no work plans and a desire to keep busy in the meantime, she decided to take a trip to different regions to experience the local food culture. Along the way, she met a coconut sugar farmer who, despite a painstakingly slow harvesting process, was having to sell coconut sugar to the domestic market at a cheap rate due to a very low market value. She learned that with its minimal profits, the whole industry was rapidly aging.