“Working with machines as an engineer for 6 years didn’t let me meet new people much. I was confined to a lab most of the time. The only time I got to talk to clients was when something went wrong and I had to apologize. It got repetitive so I switched careers and found myself in recruitment. I also relocated from America to Japan since it’s closer to Taiwan, where my hometown is. Now I do a lot of talking to people—and in Japanese, too. I’m not sure what I got myself into. I’m confident in my listening because I watched a lot of Japanese TV when I was little. But speaking is a whole new ball game. And I struggle making friends with Japanese people. Even though Taiwanese culture is so close to Japanese (people say it’s the combination of China and Japan), I find it hard to make real connections here. At least my colleagues are very international and I get to help people find jobs in IT, which is my territory. Also, Japan is picking up on Taiwanese stuff so I’m really happy our popular goods, like soup dumplings, are spreading around the world.”