Itano, Japan is home to roughly 15,000 people. One of the more notable to have once called the small island district home is Japanese musician Angela Aki.
'I lived in such a rural area,' says Aki, who was recently in Hong Kong promoting her latest album, Blue. 'We didn't even have a TV. The antennae [signal] didn't reach where my village was, so I didn't grow up watching TV.'
Instead, much like others in the village, Aki only had a few options to occupy her time, such as: 'to play outside or to play an instrument.' She mostly chose the latter, picking up the electric piano and discovering that music provided an escape from the hardships of growing up as a child of mixed heritage in a place that did not see many foreigners.
Despite being from a well-off family - Aki's father is the co-founder of Aeon Institute of Language Education, a chain of English language schools in Japan - she always felt like an outsider. She received curious and intrusive glares from those not used to her Eurasian looks. For the locals, she was different, living in a time when 'different' often meant being alienated.
But she found comfort in one source: music. More accurately, she found her identity through the piano. 'I got better and better at the piano and instead of people identifying me as a half-American, half-Japanese [person], they'd identify me as the girl that was really good at the piano,' she explains. 'So it became part of my identity that I wanted to hold on to. It became a part of me.'
Her newfound identity kept her very attached to the piano, and it's served her well. Despite playing other instruments, she's still always associated with the piano - and, of course, love songs.