Japan and Switzerland: a heart in two parts

Christine Haruka, sometimes commentator, sometimes reporter, covered the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May. Horipro

Raised in Zurich, she has been in Japan for 15 years: Christine Haruka has made a career in television there – one with a very special format.

She is a reporter who repeatedly causes a stir in Japan. In May she reported on the G7 meeting in Hiroshima. Uniquely, she filmed almost exclusively behind the scenes content. “It is a unique style in Japan that individuals who are not experts in the field comment on the news,” says the 31-year-old.

Reporter is not her only role on Japanese television, however. Sometimes she comments on politics in the news, sometimes on a trend in infoshows, or she appears as a guest in Variety shows.  

Christine Haruka was born and raised in Zurich, with a Japanese father and a Swiss mother. As a child, she was fascinated by Japanese children’s and comedy programmes, which she watched her room via satellite TV. During the summer holidays, she sometimes travelled to Japan with her family.

Her family moved to a new town in Switzerland. Christine, a primary school pupil at the time, found it difficult to fit in at her new school. The Japanese language school, which she attended once a week, became her home. There she was surrounded by other children with the same roots as her. Christine’s longing for Japan grew. After four years of high school, she persuaded her family that she wanted to go to Japan on her own.

She was fascinated by the television industry, but was first taken in by a female theatre group. Alongside this, she attended University. She quickly developed a unique style. She copied the facial expressions of famous comedians, and generously mixed in German. This was her breakthrough. She was booked for TV shows.

>> Christine Haruka reporting behind the scenes at the G7 in May:

Soon Christine was appearing in up to ten shows a week. That was a lot. In March 2018, she publicly declared that she wanted to take some time off. She then went to Canada for three months to study business administration. After that, she got married and had a daughter. 

>> Christine Haruka and her comedy work:

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Then, in autumn 2022, she returned to Japanese screens. Today, she works mainly in regional programmes.

Over the course of her career, her reputation as a policy geek became an important unique selling point. For a while, she lived in the Nagata-cho area, where the Japanese parliament building is located. She also published a book explaining Japanese politics and the electoral system to young people. Her interest in politics, she says, probably stems from her Swiss origins.

Christine Haruka talks with SWI swissinfo.ch. swissinfo.ch

Over the course of her career, her reputation as a policy geek became an important unique selling point. For a while, she lived in the Nagata-cho area, where the Japanese parliament building is located. She also published a book explaining Japanese politics and the electoral system to young people. Her interest in politics, she says, probably stems from her Swiss origins.

It almost came naturally. “I didn’t originally have a great love of politics, nor was I politically active,” says Christine in an interview with SWI swissinfo.ch. “For me, politics was simply part of everyday life.” In school lessons in Switzerland, she says, you are always asked for your opinion, and politics was always a topic of conversation among friends. Four times a year, there is a referendum in Switzerland. Then the media and public space are filled with politics and even minors have the opportunity to come into contact with politics on a daily basis.

When she later went to school in Japan, however, the environment was completely different. Students there do not express their opinions, and if they do, it is in templates. There is an atmosphere in which it is hardly possible to develop an interest in politics.

“I asked myself why that was and went to Nagata-cho to see for myself,” she says. While in Switzerland she was not necessarily the type to actively express an opinion, but she became a public figure in Japan. With the exploration of differences came a fascination for politics, until she eventually even became an opinion-maker in news programmes.

Christine has lived in Japan almost as long as she lived in Switzerland. Initially, she never returned to Switzerland, even though she was homesick. She had decided to emigrate and wanted to stick to it. 

Today she sees it with different eyes. “Back then I thought about Japan all day. Now I feel that I also missed an opportunity to live in such a good place.” She now wants to make up for that, to travel to different places to learn more about the country she once so bravely left.