Noriko's Profiles

Noriko Higashide Sirard was born in Japan in 1977. Early in her life she start interacting with people of different culture specially during her students exchange in America and Tasmania island, Australia while in high school In Shizuoka.  She then moved to Yamanashi to attend university during those years she started to travel alone to Mexico, Morocco, so on. She adds many travel experience especially in Europe and Asia. During the trip, she met Akha tribes (Tibetan-Burmese minority people) in Northern Thailand, and got special interest in their culture. She decided to live and research in the Akha village since then. After completing her her first degree BA in Comparative culture she went to take Master degree on Cultural Anthropology at Tokyo university for Foreign Studies where she specialized on South east Asian minority “Akha”. She spends seven years in Southeast Asia as in Thailand, Yunnan China, Laos. Beside her study she worked with a NGO as researcher and later Director. Noriko has written many articles and gave many lectures on the international scene and is a rare person who can speak Akha Language. Actually Noriko fluently now speak 8 Languages. (Japanese, English, Thai, Northern Thai, Akha, Mandarin, Lao, few other languages in the region) soon she will pick up French since her husband is French Canadian.

Noriko has now added a new experience in her development, for the last two years she decided to invest in herself through Yoga. She practices and learns about Yoga with her husband Mario, and experienced few Yoga teachers in India. In 2006 she took Sivananda Yoga teachers Course in Kelala, India where she got a lot of initiation and inner discovery through Yoga. She is now teaching and interacting with Japanese learning about herself and her own culture. Soon she will give birth to new soul with whom she will share her infinite wisdom.