Faces of Montreal | Kuniko Fujita: Cultivating Japan in the Montreal Garden

If you come across a dapper woman wearing a kimono and carrying a bottle of sake on the streets of Montreal, it could well be Kuniko Fujita. Established for nearly 20 years in Quebec, this sake sommelier and Japanese teacher cultivates a range of devouring passions, including gastronomy, the French language, as well as the influence of her native culture.

Sylvain Sarrazin
The Press

Between two sips of Fukamushi tea and grand cru sake, served to welcome us to his residence in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Mrs.^me Fujita, commonly nicknamed “Nico”, distills the memories.

For her, it all started in a park far removed from Mount Royal; it was on the lawns of Arisugawa, a green space in Tokyo’s cosmopolitan Minato district. It was there, where she played as a child, that she began to meet foreign friends. “I had a kind of admiration for them. They were less disciplined than Japanese children, but for me they symbolized total freedom,” she recalls.

At school, she began taking French lessons; she fell in love with the musicality of the language and fell in love with this culture, before entering the Tokyo University of Foreign Languages. “Languages ​​were a way of living in this world of freedom. Learning French was hard, with lots of rules and even more exceptions, but it was worth it! “, assures M.^me Fujita.

Her studies completed, a golden opportunity presents itself to her, propelling her as cultural attaché for the Japanese Embassy in Paris. She then immersed herself in French culture… while exploring her own. “It seems contradictory, but I discovered my native country and the beauty of its traditional culture after having left it. It was also at this time that I started to discover wines and sake,” she says.

His career continued to unfold throughout the Francophonie. She flew to Morocco, then to Senegal. His future stopover: Montreal. Once arrived in the Quebec metropolis, the Japanese traveler, who usually liked a change of air and horizons after two or three years, found there an ideal place to raise her daughter and pursue her own journey, infiltrating the local gastronomic universe. and winning her sake sommelier diploma – which sits with dignity in her dining room.

thirst for curiosity

Within the mosaic of Montreal’s diversity, it maintains its place as the standard-bearer of the archipelago.

A teacher – she teaches Japanese language, history and literature in a Montreal school -, lecturer and specialist in spirits, the one who is now nicknamed “Madame Saké in Quebec” never misses an opportunity to discover the treasures of Japanese traditions, occasionally guest on TV shows. Even leaving the circuit of diplomacy, she continues to ensure her role of ambassador, often embroidering around the gastronomic fiber. “I am more comfortable outside of official diplomacy, because I can communicate directly with Quebecers, see their curiosity and their interest in what I present to them,” rejoices Ms.^me Fujita.

A curiosity often hooked when she puts on her traditional outfits. “I’m used to walking around town in a kimono! she laughs. But make no mistake, there is nothing folkloric about it, its approach being supported by a real philosophy. “It’s not to appear more Japanese, it’s to show more authentically this world. Putting on a kimono is a passage, it’s ceremonial. Preparation is a kind of meditation. Preparation in general is also very important in Japanese culture: it is not about success, but about spending time with yourself,” she explains. His closet contains around thirty kimonos, carefully chosen according to a theme or a mood.

French love

From one island to another, the sommelier now thrives in the Montreal landscape, where she appreciates the balance between urbanity and nature, as well as the relaxed character of its residents (“except when they drive!” , she laughs). “There are three important elements in Japanese culture: respect, joy, sharing, and we seek harmony between them. In Montreal, it’s a bit like that, ”says the one who loves the peaceful streets of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, where the neighborhood calls out to her on occasion when he saw her on television the day before.

It is also an ideal garden for cultivating her idyll with the French language, which has never faded – she writes it impeccably, dodging its countless pitfalls. “My attachment to the French language is immense. I have two loves: French and Japanese, and I started teaching the second after falling in love with the first”, she confesses.

Between restaurants and sake tastings, between festivals and discoveries, Kuniko Fujita hopes that Quebec’s thirst for curiosity will always be there to keep the Japanese cultural heart beating, and perhaps take it to other levels. “Here, there is no Japanese cultural center like the Goethe Institut… One day, I will try to found one!” “, she promises.