“I wasted half my life trying to make other people happy. My family and relatives were totally against me moving to Japan. My stepdad is from the Caribbean and the traditional culture there is you’re not supposed to go against what your parents said. But I didn’t really want to study Spanish or something elseContinue reading
“There are 55 minority groups in China, and I belong to one of them. I’m Uyghur. I’m from Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, which is in Northwestern China. I came to Japan right after the 2011 earthquake. Before that, I was working at a youth hostel when I thought of studying overseas. I wanted toContinue reading
“I came to Japan right after the bubble burst in the early 1990s. I was six years old and the only foreigner in school. Maybe I was the first foreigner the Japanese kids at my school had ever seen. And perhaps their stereotype of a foreigner was someone with blonde hair and blue eyes. ButContinue reading One of Them
“Even though I did my undergraduate in the United States, the reason I chose to live in Japan is because I wanted to see possibilities other than the typical track of getting a job, a green card and things like that. I want to go different places to see how far I can reach, andContinue reading Seeing the Possibilities
“When I was 12 I moved to Canada from Korea where I was born. I went there with my mom and my brother. At first, my father was a goose father. We have this term in Korea, it’s a father who lives in Korea and supports his family in a foreign country. After two yearsContinue reading Challenging Myself
