1999 today 12 November I set my foot on African continent and I have lived ever since. 10 years.. I have never lived so long before anywhere in one place except an island where I grew up on, yet I feel like the 10 years just zipped by so quickly. I had never left the country before I came to Africa. I lived on the small island till I was eighteen as opposed to living in a big city inundated, for good or bad, with information. So leaving the island was quite a thing for me and could not even have imagined that one day I would live overseas. Plus I could not speak a word of English to begin with.
Anyway here I am in Africa. I do feel like I am more of an African now so I hesitate to use the word “expat” and I am almost always unaware of it except a few occasions such as the election that reminds me of actually not a citizen, I do not have a vote. But just for the heck of it and to commemorate my anniversary I would like to look at things from being an expat and also in hope of connecting to other expats across the world, sharing the experience from tough to awesome ones and helping become more acculturate, open-minded and evolve.
I live in Cape Town, South Africa where there are many skin colures, 11 official languages and more cultures. So people are supposed to respect each other to live in harmony. They is a variety of people and that is one of many I like about Cape Town. I was born and “bred” in Japan where there is one skin colour, one language, one culture. To be honest, I did not quite feel aligned with the general public when I was in Japan and once the idea of going overseas to see another world beyond the ocean hit me it increasingly grew and I longed for it so badly.
Things we do in where we are born are so normal they are invisible to us. People go to countries for a holiday but it is rare to intensely experience the culture with the first hand sensation so we don’t have a chance to see them really in contrast. But once you experience you perceive, consciously or not, that it is not the only way, it works this way or that way too that makes you more tolerant and flexible. That leads to a whole range of elements we can discuss in terms of languages, relocation, belongingness, aloneness, interculture, visa etc. I am interested to hear about what it is like to live overseas for you and your advices.
This is kinda introduction. I like to bring up a topic for each post.
Tags: expats
