What is our identity? Am I so unique?

I have lived abroad for a total of four years, and sometimes I wonder what identity is.

What are the criteria for being a person of that country?

What is the standard for being a person of a country?

What kind of impression do you get when you hear the word “Japanese”?

For example, polite, humble, nerdy, workaholic, not good at English…?

Before coming to Malaysia, I had a hard time fitting myself in Japan, especially at work.

I was part of a sales support team and once solved a problem with an unpaid bill.

Many Japanese are not good at communicating in English.

They use the word “gaikokujin”(foreigner) a lot and give up easily on cultural gaps.

I did not give up easily and kept contacting the European branch and finally got them to respond and complete the payment.

Japanese companies are still conservative and do not like change.

I did not like that, and sometimes I hated manual input and inefficient work processes.

At such times, I would ask myself, “Am I not a normal Japanese?” I had a feeling that I was not.

This feeling did not begin when I was an adult.

As a child, I was always bullied at school and was a little different from the other kids.

While everyone else was playing sports or doing some activity at the park, I did a puppet show with my friends.

I was very introverted and always played with puppets in the house.

For some reason, I decided to do the puppet show at the park and invited my friends to do it with me.

That’s when all the other kids were staring at us.

Then one of the kids said, “Aren’t you guys embarrassed?” and we finally realized that we were doing something unusual.

In Japan, there is a kind of pressure to be like other people; if you are not, someone will warn you.

It can be tricky because it is not a direct warning but implied from the way we use words.

I decided to work abroad and chose Malaysia because it was easy to get a visa sponsor.

When I came here, I saw past experiences outside of Japan and felt that I did not have to think I was special.

I have met many very unique people here, but I am not so special.

Everything is free and acceptable, we can do whatever we want to.

So I believe that everyone should have their own identity and not feel pressure to be the same as others of the same nationality.

Immediately after arriving in Malaysia, there are still some shocking events.

I will continue this in the next issue.

Thanks to my friend Pang for encouraging me to write here.