With more than 170 countries represented in Baruch’s student body, it’s only natural that two people from completely different cultures and backgrounds would find each other and fall in love. And that’s exactly what happened with Aneta Glinkowska (’02) and Kosuke Fujitaka, who met “while printing photos in the darkroom.”
Glinkowska came to Baruch in 1997 after arriving from Poland; Fujitaka came three years later, from Japan. She studied biology; he studied marketing. A mutual friend introduced them in what was then the College’s photography darkroom. “He was a good printer. He got an A,” said Glinkowska of Fujitaka.
What began as a friendship eventually blossomed into a romance, and a long-distance one at that, as Fujitaka returned to Japan to complete his undergraduate degree after only a year at Baruch. “Until I graduated, we saw each other two to three times a year,” said Glinkowska. Finally, seven years after meeting in 2000, they exchanged vows in Tokyo.
At the time, Fujitaka was running a Tokyo-based arts website about local exhibits, and the couple decided to “bring that platform to New York.” The result is www.nyartbeat.com, a comprehensive directory of some 700 art and design-related events going on in and around New York City. The website’s official app has been downloaded more than 20,000 times.
In March the Brooklyn-based couple returned to Tokyo for several months with their two-year-old daughter, Hana, so that Fujitaka could train for a new job with a news application startup. He will be in charge of the New York office when they return.
With such differences in their backgrounds, the couple has had to make some adjustments. She’s “adapting more to Japanese culture: in eating, being more respectful of other people’s space, being more polite.” She has also learned quite a bit of Japanese. But according to Glinkowska, her husband’s “Polish is almost nonexistent” even if he does enjoy a pork cutlet dinner and, when they’re in New York, going to Polish restaurants for pierogi.
—Barbara Lippman
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