Giyoo Hatano was an international scholar--an adaptive expert himself. His creative methodologies and theoretical insights have enriched the work of researchers in many countries. How Hatano lived his life and treated others provides enriching insights as well. In this essay, we focus on "adaptive expertise", one of Giyoo Hatano's major contributions to the field. We explore both the explicit information he provided about adaptive expertise and the implicit information gleaned from how he lived his life and collaborated with people around the world. By describing Giyoo Hatano's own qualities as an intercultural adaptive expert, we can begin to explore conditions for promoting those qualities.