May Uehara, who came to Japan from Hong Kong in 1986, speaks Japanese with such perfect intonation that people may at first mistake her for a native.
But she has a lot of stories about trying to master the language, and how that led to finding a Japanese husband and raising a family in Hatogaya, southern Saitama Prefecture.
Now May leads a busy life filling four major roles — as a busy career woman at a shipping company in Tokyo, a board member of an association of Hong Kongers in Japan (the Hong Kong Tai Ping Shan Club), and a wife and mother at home.