Ruth A. Kanagy

Anabaptist · Author · Bicyclist · Educator · Nature Lover · Third Culture Kid  

Ruth A. Kanagy was born and raised in Japan as a child of Mennonite missionaries, growing up in a dairy farming community in remote eastern Hokkaido. She grew up navigating between Japanese and American cultures, customs, beliefs, food, religions, and languages, which sparked her curiosity about similarities and differences among diverse cultures and peoples. Coming to the U.S. for college, she struggled with culture shock as an invisible international student, 8,000 miles away from her family in the pre-Internet age. She wrote down those experiences in a forthcoming memoir. 

Not knowing what to do after college for a career, she turned to the only thing she knew: teaching Japanese and English as a second language at the university level, and researching how students learn a foreign language. Later on she switched to working in the bicycle travel industry. She established Japan Cycle Tours and led bicycle tours to Japan for many years until Japan closed its doors during the Corona virus era.  

After living in Oregon for many years, Ruth moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she leads a monthly Japanese conversation group and is trying to learn Pennsylvania Dutch—her father’s first language: Ich bin Deitsch am lanne. Her passions include gardening, nature, birds, hiking, acapella singing, adventure travel, and interacting with international people. She enjoys spending time with her daughters and grandsons in New York and lives part of each year in Tokyo, where she attends Honancho Mennonite Church. She is the author of “Moon Living Abroad: Japan.” Above all, she loves introducing people to Japan—her furusato, home of the heart.