Mao Kobayashi – Japanese Newsreader

Mao Kobayashi is behind the cancer blog that is gripping Japan, which is a place where people don’t discuss things like cancer. In fact, the only time someone mentions the disease it is because someone has died or beat it. However, this 34-year-old decided to go against the norms and started a blog about her experience with the illness and how it changed the way she looks at life.

Just a couple of years ago, Kobayashi was diagnosed with breast cancer. She figured that everything would work out after the cancer was treated and cured, and she could just go back to her normal life. However, it wasn’t that simple or easy, and she ended up hiding the cancer for a long time.

Now that the cancer has spread to her lungs and bones, she decided it was time to start talking about the disease and help others in the same situation. After her illness was reported in a tabloid newspaper, many people were outraged and felt it was an invasion of her privacy. That’s when she decided to start the blog to share her story the right way. In 2016, Kobayashi was named one of the most inspirational and influential women in the world by BBC.

The feminine name Mao is taken from the Japanese character 真 that means "real” or “genuine", or 舞 that means "dance" together with 央 that means "center", 緒 that means "thread" or 桜 that means "cherry blossom". However, there are many other Kanji combinations that are possible too.