長井智子

Tomoko Nagai was born and raised in Tokyo and is a staff reporter and proofreader of the Japanese section of The Rafu Shimpo, also reporting for English section.

She graduated from Nihon University College of Art, majoring in film with emphasis in electronic news-gathering and video art. She started her journalistic carrier in 1983 as the U.S. correspondent in New York for a Japanese publisher, Gakken. She worked as associate editor of the U.S. Food Journal (NCA, Inc.), and as managing editor of FJQ, a newsletter (Paul Y. Yamaguchi and Associate). Both publications specialize in the restaurant and food business. She also wrote a monthly column, “Report From New York,” for Cosmopolitan Japan magazine (Shueisha) about the active lifestyle of New York women.

She lived in Paris for two years and wrote occasionally for Japanese publishers before returning to Japan to take a hiatus from the publishing industry. She moved to Los Angeles in 2007 and joined The Rafu Shimpo in 2019.

Growing up in an old-school Japanese family in downtown Tokyo, Nagai was strongly influenced by classical Japanese dance and music. At the same time, she was immersed in Western culture through 12 years of education in a private Catholic mission school. Nagai hopes her perspective can build a bridge between countries, cultures and communities.