Stephen Earle has been a student of the Japanese language and East Asian culture and history for almost fifty years. He lived and worked in Japan during most of the 1970s and 1980s and has also lived and worked in China and Singapore, as well as travelled extensively in East, Southeast, and South Asia. He estimates he has crossed the Pacific Ocean over 250 times. He and his wife, Akemi, live in Richmond, Virginia, where he teaches aikido and she teaches Japanese language. They have two children and four grandchildren.