Many of the sequences in the life of I. Marek Kaminski have been beset by complications. Some were political, and not of his own making. Some were personal, and equally not of his making. His was the task of dealing with them instead of being defeated by them. He takes a broad view. "As a refugee, I left a divided Europe," he said. "As a university lecturer, I return to a united Europe. I am more than happy now in the way I can contribute to bringing Europe and Japan together."

In 1947, Kaminski was born in Krakow, Poland. "My mother was left with five children," he said. "As a child I spent a few years in an orphanage. Despite all the complications and difficulties, I graduated from Warsaw University. I have been living outside Poland since 1972, and spent my life in exile doing cross-cultural research and teaching cultural anthropology."

Before he left Poland he began writing his Ph.D. thesis. Invited by the University of Sweden, he continued his field work there on ethnic minority groups, "but it was complicated. In order to study and to submit my work, I had to learn Swedish," he said. In Sweden he courted and married a young Japanese woman who was part Korean, and came with her to Japan in 1976. "Again, it was complicated. My marriage was mixed, I was stateless -- a refugee, but Polish at heart." Within two years he received Swedish citizenship. His daughter, Akane, was born in 1978 in Sweden.