Kit's dead.
He, he died.
Kit, do you wanna go for a walk?
Sorry, that was mean.
I'll take you for a walk after this, go back to sleep!
Now I feel bad.
Hey guys how's it going? My name is Micaela, and today I wanted to make a video addressing
a question that was asked in my last video.
The last video I did was about why I wasn't choosing to naturalise, or become a Japanese
Citizen, and it sparked a lot of really really interesting responses, interesting as in "good",
and interesting as in "hurtful and hateful", but overall very interesting, so thank you
very much for all of your feedback. It has been a ride.
If I don't plan to turn into a Japanese Citizen, then why am I even living in Japan?
This answer has several layers, and I'd kinda like to go through them right now.
The first layer is the stereotypical TV answer that every foreigner gives when they're interviewed
for a TV program:
I like Japan because it's a beautiful country, I love the language, the food is delicious,
I love nature, it's a very clean country, everyone is very polite, and there are some
really brilliant inventions like onigiri wrappers that open like this~! Or sushi trains with
automatic touch panels!
Japan is a fairly-well functioning country in terms of disease control, low crime rates,
cost of living, and people are generally polite on a day-to-day basis, because part of Japanese
culture is "preserving the harmony". While on the internet you may read a bunch of really
really hateful comments, that's not the way that people are in real life so don't let
it scare you away.
So that's like, the vanilla TV answer™, but there are actually more dimensions than
that.
I like Japan, don't get me wrong, I do like Japan and that is where I live right now,
but the truth is I also like other countries in Asia too.
And luckily because I'm in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Airport has direct flights to neighboring
Asian countries, and so it's so so easy to go from Fukuoka to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Thailand, to yes, Korea, and China.
Living in Canada, the country next door is America, and I've crossed the border many
times and it's like, you don't even really see what the difference is, to be honest,
it's, there's nothing that different.. Besides the money.
However, being in Japan and say flying an hour to Korea, it's completely different!
It's completely different, and it can be a little bit scary and intimidating, but it's
also thrilling. It's like, I love that thrill, that adrenaline rush you get from being somewhere
where you don't understand anything but you kinda just have to breathe, focus, and figure
it out.
And living in Fukuoka allows me to do that, I can just go to all these places but at the
end of the day, I can come back to Japan where I do feel a little more comfortable. And that's
nice!
So the third layer, the third layer is actually the most personal..
Canada, is a great country in many ways, but like I said, every country has it's flaws,
and for me there is just one outstanding flaw that I couldn't agree with, and um, that's
ultimately what drove me to want to visit somewhere new.
I'm going to sound super uncool and like, grandma-like trying to explain this, I'm explaining
it in simple terms because I know that Japanese people watch this video too...
I went to high school in a small town, I was born in Vancouver, in Richmond but I grew
up in a smaller town away from Vancouver, and um, going to highschool there's not a
lot to do and people like to fill their time experimenting with drugs and alcohol, for
me that was something that was really really hard because had decided when I was a child?
when I was young? I would never do drugs or drink alcohol, because I dunno, I just, it
was something that just felt right.
I had friends, I had great friends, I love my friends so much, but um, you know going
to parties, and stuff, at first I would go anyway, but because I wasn't partaking in
any of the activities, it just became really hard to relate to everyone cause like, while
they were going on this little journey together, I was kind of like, stepping back and being
like "okay this isn't what I want for myself", so I kind of isolated myself on purpose, cause
it just wasn't for me.
And coming to Japan changed my life, it felt right, and the reason it felt right was because
I was suddenly put into a school that was very strict, we had school, 6? no five and
a half days a week. Monday to Friday, and then half a day on Saturday.
After school everyone went to club activities, they were playing sports, they were healthy,
they were engaged, and they were like, motivated?
It was completely different from my school experience back in Canada. And I felt like
that made more sense to me. And for me, growing up in that environment, like I felt like,
the discipline made me a better person. And I felt better about myself, and the type of
person I was becoming.
And even growing up in Japan, so like from, what? 18, 19, 20, it was really nice that,
you know, when people hang out, they go to Karaoke, they go to the game centre, they
take purikura, they eat cake at a cute little cafe and they talk, and they go shopping...
We love starbucks and sakura lattes, and like that is our excitement for the day, that's
what fulfills us.
I felt like that lifestyle suited me, and the kind of person that I wanted to be, and
the kind of lifestyle I wanted to have, a lot better than what I was getting living
in a small town in Canada.
And if you're going through a hard time I just want you to know, that you can use that
energy, you can focus it into building yourself into the person that you wanna be.
Once you're in a place that feels right, like, everything changes.
Now that I'm older, I go back to Canada and I visit my friends, cause I do love my friends,
I visit them and a lot of them have grown out of that, I love going back and I love
seeing them and hanging out with them NOW, I just think that it was really hard growing
up like that, and for me, if I had grown up like that I don't know if I would have been
happy with who I was, so, I'm really glad that I took this opportunity, I am thankful
to Japan. Like, I'm thankful, to Japan for raising me, but why am I still in Japan? Even
if I don't want to renounce my Canadian citizenship? It's because I'm comfortable here! I feel
comfortable here, and I'm happy here, and I just like, I can live here without becoming
a Japanese citizen, legally, that's fine, it's not an issue, it doesn't mean I don't
like Japan. I'm very thankful for Japan, but...
Yeah.
I gotta go. Bye,