T. R. Reid (pictured with the keeper of the reservoir outside Sololo, Kenya) is the London bureau chief for the Washington Post and a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio. He has written for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC about Japan, Malaysia, and the Roman Empire. He is the author of five books in English and three in Japanese. His latest, Confucius Lives Next Door, will be published by Random House in spring 1999. Reid was featured in the National Geographic EXPLORER episode “Sumo: Dance of the Gargantuans,” but as a commentator, not a wrestler.

An admittedly “rotten photographer, pretty good skier, and fanatic snowboarder,” Reid lives with his family in London. The Reid family used to live in Tokyo and find many similarities between Japan and the United Kingdom. According to Reid, “The British get visibly angry when I say this out loud.”