“I like creating something from nothing,” said Hatsumi who can’t hide her excitement as her face lit up at the mention of her true love–making jewelry.
“This ring I’m wearing is my first design ever. It took me 30 hours of painstaking cutting, carving, and polishing to finish it.”
After receiving a diploma in Arts and Design in New York, Hatsumi decided to try her luck launching her own line of jewelry here in Tokyo, where she plans to sell handmade trinkets.
Not all things in her life glitter though. She belongs to an ethnic minority of Korean residents in Japan whose first language is Japanese but are sometimes regarded as second-class citizens. Despite the setbacks and a checkered past, she still manages to turn everything she touches to gold.
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