Shoda, 28, who speaks Japanese, English and Russian, is the only woman in Moscow's Japanese press corps. And, she says, she is only the second woman in the history of Japan's foreign press to be assigned here.
"Before, only older, more experienced journalists in their 30s and 40s were sent to Moscow," Shoda said. "Now because life in Russia is considered difficult and families don't want to come, the [companies] send young correspondents."
Despite her own success, Shoda describes life for women in the Japanese work force as one full of glass ceilings. "Even though women get better scores on the companies' written tests, they are not often hired because the companies think they will quit when they have a family," Shoda said. "In television there are five times as many men as women."
But Shoda says times are changing. And she calls herself "part of a new generation of Japanese."
Raised in Koga, a small city outside of Tokyo, Shoda said her parents, in the local Japanese tradition, groomed her for a life close to home. "They wanted me to go to the local university, become a teacher and get married," she said. "My younger brother was the one who was supposed to do something important."
Instead, Shoda went to Tokyo's Tsudo College. At the all-women's university, she studied international relations and Russian language -- a passion of hers since the age of 15. In 1989 Shoda participated in the first Japanese student exchange program with Tashkent University. She studied for a year with students from all over the world, from Afghans to Americans, writing her thesis on the ethnic problems of Uzbekistan. "It was an exciting time to be there," she said. "That was when Tashkent was claiming its independence."
Shoda said her longtime interest in the former Soviet Union came from a close relative. "My grandfather was a prisoner of war in Siberia from 1945-47," Shoda said. "I heard a lot about it and wanted to see the city where my grandfather lived, and see the country and people that had been talked about so much with my own eyes."
Shoda added that her life in Moscow was difficult at first. But now that she has met more friends, she likes it here. "I feel more free to do and report on what I want," she said. But there is one exception: the war in Chechnya. Although she volunteered to go to Chechnya, Shoda said, she, like many of the Japanese correspondents, were required to report on Chechnya from Moscow.
Ironically, Shoda's most interesting experience in Russia had nothing to do with journalism, she said, but the time she, "camped in the forest for two days with a group of Russians and a guitar." This for her, she said, was another first.
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