Keiko Soeda: Faith with Room for Her Roots

A closed Quran on a carpet in warm light — Photo: Qur’an still life — Malik Shibly / Unsplash (Unsplash License).

In Singapore, Keiko Soeda was learning to live between languages and cultures. She had come from Japan to study, and Islam entered her life through university research and through people who practised it. Sunday classes at the Muslim Converts Association offered a place to learn. She did not want religion to become a formality before marriage: she wanted to understand her choice and be able to keep it through whatever her married life might bring.

In her interview with Have Halal, Will Travel, she described finding Islamic teachings close to values she had grown up with. That familiarity still left new practices to learn, including prayer and halal food. She said she embraced Islam a year before marrying, giving her faith a foundation of its own. Her journey belongs to the 1990s; its meaning in her account rests on a considered commitment.

Another part of that understanding appeared in a statement published by writer Shaik Kadir in 2016. Learning the beautiful names of God had helped her make sense of knowing Him, she explained. She also valued being able to turn to God directly, wherever she was. This was the personal meaning she gave her belief, extending beyond membership of a household or a community.

Daily life brought practical questions. She later recalled looking for halal ingredients and wondering where she could pray at work, alongside concern about keeping her Japanese identity. She wanted company from someone who understood such adjustments. Sometimes the help a newcomer needs has a modest shape: a useful address, an approachable friend, or another person’s experience of the same difficulty.

Her family in Japan remained part of that life. In a 2017 interview, she and her husband spoke about visiting and about the family’s care over their food. These were everyday forms of mutual consideration. They made room for family life across differences, giving respect a practical expression in something as familiar as sharing a meal.

Speaking to BERITA Mediacorp in 2023, she reflected on leaving her parents behind in Japan. Becoming a mother had deepened her understanding of what they had given her. Calls and visits helped sustain closeness across the distance. Meanwhile, Sakura Club, which she helped establish for Japanese Muslims in Singapore, offered another kind of connection: people could meet, exchange experiences and help one another.

She also turned to children’s writing to make this life more familiar to others. Her book, When Nasi Lemak Meets Sushi, approached Japan, Singapore and Islam through her son’s world. In discussing the book, she explained her hope that readers would gain knowledge to enrich their perceptions. Ordinary experiences could become an invitation to understand people whose backgrounds differed from their own.

At a cultural gathering in 2025, she spoke warmly about Muslims from different countries and communities meeting one another. Across these dated accounts, the faith she had wanted to understand for herself became connected with making room for others to ask and belong. Her story brings together patient learning and the companionship that can make a new beginning less lonely.

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