Yuko Kikuchi, Professor of Craft History at Kanazawa College of Art, shares her professional journey beginning with the Beat Generation in California. Moving to England, she was introduced to the Arts and Crafts Movement, through which she re-discovered the Mingei folk craft movement of her home country, Japan. She reflects on the Western critic of Mingei as elitism by identifying its evolution inside Japan into a modern commodity through MUJI and popular culture through manga comics. We also talk about Japan's relationship to Taiwan, the unsustainability of craft in Kanazawa and the gender imbalance in Japanese society.