Suki Tanaka

Culture & Lifestyle EditorPortland, Oregon

Drove a Daihatsu Hijet around Tokyo for two years. Came home and built a Sambar life on the Oregon coast.

Suki spent three years teaching English in Setagaya, Tokyo, in her mid-twenties. The yaki-imo (roasted sweet potato) truck that came by her neighborhood every evening is what got her hooked on kei vehicles. She bought a 1995 Daihatsu Hijet from a rice farmer in Niigata for ¥80,000 — about $600 — and drove it around Tokyo for two years. When she moved back to the US, she couldn't bring it (still under the 25-year rule). It broke her heart.

Now 31, she lives in Portland's Sellwood neighborhood, runs a small ceramics studio called Tsuchi (土, "earth"), and finally bought a US-legal 1994 Subaru Sambar Van that she named Samu-chan. She uses it for pottery deliveries to weekend markets and for camping trips to the Oregon coast.

Suki writes the culture pieces — history, lifestyle, community spotlights, the why-these-trucks-make-people-smile articles. She's the one who decided Keijira should feel like a magazine instead of a wiki.

What Suki covers

Kei vehicle culture and history
Community spotlights
Japanese-American cultural context
Owner stories and lifestyle pieces
Event coverage
Editorial features

Suki's kei vehicles

1994 Subaru Sambar Van“Samu-chan”
dark green, daily driver, has a Tatsuro Yamashita bumper sticker

Articles by Suki (16)

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