Today's guest, James Van Lieu, first came to the Matsumoto area in the late 1980s to work for several years as an engineer at Epson. In 2010 he moved back to Matsumoto, this time under very different circumstances.  For today's Japanofiles Podcast, James talks about his experiences living and working in Matsumoto -- both then and now.

Daniel Martin and John Koons, two members of the Matsumoto foreign community, recently went up to northeastern Japan to help with the relief effort. In today's Japanofiles Podcast, which focuses on the devastated Tohoku region, Daniel and John share their experiences of volunteering in Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures, and they also talk about traveling through the areas affected by the tsunami, earthquake, and radiation.