Hi! I’m Karen Yoshimi-I am a mixed race Air Force brat-my mother is Japanese and my father is American . I am a recently retired paralegal -I went back to school when I was 48 to get my paralegal certificate and it was my first career move in which I used only English to do my job. Most of my career choices before becoming a paralegal consisted of opportunities that presented themselves due to being bilingual in Japanese and English.
My first job of actually making good money was working as a model in print and commercial television media when I was 16 in Tokyo, Japan. I continued working in this field until I aged out at 22 and shifted to co-hosting a television dating game show in Japan. I really appreciate the opportunities that working as a model presented to me-I used the income to pay for night school and I graduated with a BS in Business Management during this time.
After graduating college, my first corporate job was working for Japan Air Lines in Washington D.C. as an administrative assistant. While there, I was offered a job as an English/Japanese language copywriter for an advertising agency in Tokyo and I decided to embrace this opportunity to move back to Japan and work for an entirely Japanese firm. It was a drastic change to work amongst my Japanese peers -including half days on Saturday and obligatory evenings committed to office gatherings wherein the women of any age and the recently hired young men were expected to pour beers and sake for the older men in positions of power. Although I was not pleased when I too was occasionally asked to pour and serve tea to visiting clients-I poured the damned tea with a smile and traded business cards with the intention of building some powerful connections.
Eventually, through the network of contacts I created-I managed to land my ultimate dream job! I worked as a translator and coordinator for a Pony Canyon Records in Japan who distributed records for major American labels including A&M Records and Windham Hill and I was the bilingual translator for all the touring artists of the record labels- I had such a blast touring and translating for Janet Jackson, Barry White, Extreme, The Neville Brothers, Chris De Burch and many more when they came to Japan.
So- the reason for my long winded history is to explain my perspective of retirement- which hasn’t changed much from my youth- keep your eyes/ears/heart open to any opportunities that pique your curiosity and give different paths a try!
Rosy Retirement 