A first step…

… in a direction I don’t know

This is actually my first story on Medium. Which seems like a pretty interesting place. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, I won’t be able to participate much into this whole… idea sharing experience Medium seems to want to be. Instead, I’ll just be posting articles about my life in Japan, as said in the description of the Publication, both the good sides and the less good sides of it. So, you might find some armchair philosophy here and there, and a lot of introspection and me questionning myself.

This is supposed to be in English for now, but as times goes by and if I change my mind, this might become my main mean of communication with my family and friends I’ll be leaving behind and you might start to see some French pop here and there. English versions will still be there however, if you ever, for whatever reason, find interest in my journey in Japan.

Now that the reason behind all this has been revealed, I think I owe you an introduction, especially for you strangers on the Internet that don’t know me.

My name’s Yvon CHANG, 21 years old, born and raised in France from Hmong parents. Spent my youth doing mostly nothing outside of school and now… I’ve come to the point I realized life doesn’t wait for anyone, so I decided to just… Do something of my life. This trip to Japan is the first “thing” I do with my life.

You may ask “Why Japan?”, well… Being the young lad I am, I grew up surrounded by a bunch of brothers who watched anime on the TV and the disease kinda spread to me. Everyone else got out of it, not me. Still in there, going further and further down the rabbit hole.

Outside of that, I also found out Japan actually has a culture! What a shock! And that culture is also something that interests me. Well, I just like to try to understand how people think in general, so a society so far from our standards like Japan is an easy and obvious prey. Unfortunately, I’m still a big procrastinator with a rather short attention span (except for useless things and/or things I like a lot, A LOT) so reading never was my forte, so I basically know nothing of Society, Psychology etc… But hey, I’ll get the chance to experience all of this first-hand once I get there.

This passion for Japan put aside, I’m also an avid music listener in general. I like to think I have a fairly broad taste in Music (although with very little actual Music Culture), but I just can’t seem to get into Rap, Hip-Hop, EDM or Classical and Pop is more often than not Miss rather than Hit. Metal takes the number spot of my favorite genres and Rock second. With most of my brothers getting into Hard Rock and Metal at some point, I was bound to end up in this too. To this day, Iron Maiden, Metallica and Trivium are among my favorite bands. Recent additions to this list would be The Reign of Kindo and The Ongoing Concept.

I also discovered Vocaloid circa 2009–2010 and have been a fan ever since, although the hype died down since then. It’s not just about liking that thing no one else likes (millions of people already like Vocaloid anyway). It was the meaning behind Vocaloid that made me fall in love with it. Music wasn’t such a far away world anymore. Talented musicians from everywhere in the world could try and break through with Vocaloid, and this was an unbelievably attractive thought to me. You bought a cheap Audio Interface, a Shure SM57, tri pod, pirated some Cubase and got yourself a copy of Hatsune Miku? Go make that music.

It wasn’t about nepotism and knowing Mr.Big Name and its label anymore. Strangers from all over the internet gathered around Vocaloid and turned it into something big, and it fascinated me, it made me think that the Internet, the World isn’t such a bad place after all! Music has such a power and such an impact in our lives that the thought of having people like you and me doing great things with Vocaloid rejoiced me as a music enthusiast and as an amateur musician.

And finally, I guess I like Video-Games. I play a lot less than I used to due to college, but even then, I didn’t play a lot of games. Mostly sticking with one for extended periods of time. Now it’s Overwatch (although it’ll be over in a few days when I leave my PC and take the plane), before that was Team Fortress 2, with which I had a blast during my 1 or 2 years playing it with friends from an awesome online community and before that was Wolfenstein : Enemy Territory, which was tons of fun as well. Dofus and Counter-Strike : Source were also games I spent some time on during mostly Middle-School, but not as much as the other three. Big fan of FPS, I guess. But another love of mine was the Kingdom Hearts series. It’s an absolute mess right now, but it still has a special place in my heart for being such an awesome concept with some pretty damn cool execution. Now I just wait in a corner for the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 like a lot of others… Oh and of course! How could I forget about Pokémon? Got out of my “Pokémon is for kids” phase shortly after XY’s release. Never looked back ever since. Sun & Moon are shaping up to be one of the best Generation yet. Nothing more to say, as simple as that.

Alright, that’s pretty much it ; the few things you may need to know about me! I’ll probably be here during the 12 next months, so keep an eye out if you want to see a kid discover life and the world around him. Could make you laugh or facepalm… Or maybe just bore you to death.

In any case, nice to meet you, and see you around!