Friendship Friday: Loco in Yokohama

This week I'm going to talk a little bit about Loco in Yokohama.

What?

Loco in Yokohama is a personal blog written by a fellow New Yorker living in Yokohama, Japan. According to him, the blog was created with three things in mind: to "share some of the things I have experienced in Japan, to get back into writing regularly, and to showcase my writing." He's been writing since 2008, so there are a great many high-quality posts waiting to be read.

Why I like It

Despite being an American male in Japan, Loco writes about a lot of things that are outside my frame of reference. While every person who comes to this country will have a different range of experiences, his experiences as a black man are often pretty different from my own.

Though his time in Japan does account for a good amount of his content, he also sometimes writes about things that happened in the past and have affected his life in some way. Reading about his youth in New York and his time in the military have been particularly interesting for me, and I've been impressed not only with how many fascinating stories Loco has to tell, but with how good he is at telling them.

I have been following his site for a long while now and I particularly enjoy reading about his conversations and interactions with his students. Of all his work, though, what impressed and interested me the most was his "My name is Loco..." series, where he wrote about his experiences on both ends of racism and his struggles with his own inner demons. His writing is very honest and very human, and it really show through in those posts.

(For all you aspiring bloggers out there) I also really admire his industriousness. Loco is one of the rising stars in the J-blogosphere, and he has managed to grow a large readership through his devotion to his content, smart self-marketing, and personal charisma. In other words, he's a self-made man.

So if you haven't yet been to his site, I definitely recommend checking it out. He's also a really nice (though busy) guy if you want to approach him. I've emailed him in the past for some blogging advice and he went so far as to post on his blog to try and help me out.

Once more, Loco in Yokohama.