This I Believe

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  I believe in the uniqueness of different countries’ societies; the differences in everyday occurrences that people endure.  I believe in how life can be complete opposites for citizens of different countries.  From the ages of two to eleven I lived in Tokyo, Japan.  My family was one in a million, an all American family in a pool of Asians, Europeans, and Africans.  I lived my life day to day being unable to understand what most of the other people were saying in languages other than English.  I spent my time with bi-lingual friends who would oftentimes speak to their families in their native tongue while I sat back and waited for them to speak English again.  It wasn’t weird and I didn’t question it because it was all I knew.  I would walk through crowds of Japanese people saying things I did not understand and not even acknowledge that I couldn’t tell what they were saying.  This was life for me.  I understood what I could and didn’t understand what I couldn’t and went on with my day.
  Life in Japan was simple.  I would wake up every morning, clean myself up, get dressed and have breakfast.  I would then say goodbye to my family and ride my bike to a school that was far down a busy road.  It’s important to note that I went alone since the age of seven, emphasizing that it was safe enough for me, a seven-year-old child, to travel without any supervision.  That’s just how safe Japan was.  I was even able to go alone to the grocery store even further than my school.  It’s amazing to look back on how I could do these things without running into any sort of danger, such as kidnapping, car accidents, getting lost, or getting injured.  There were always strangers nearby who were heartwarming and kind, that if I did get lost or injured, they could help me get home.
  These are only a few examples of how different life as a child was in Japan.  These are also some of the most drastic differences when compared to life in a place such as Michigan.  When my family moved back here in 2012, my life as a citizen turned upside down.  Everything about being in public changed when I moved here.  Everything I knew from living in my home country didn’t apply to my life anymore.  My whole life practically changed as there were no similarities with this new country to my previous life.  For one, I understood everything everyone was saying.  I could hear average people, going about their days, speaking in a language in which I was fluent.  This wasn’t like before where I would occasionally come across a foreign group of people that spoke English.  Instead, it was everyone, and there would be the occasional occurrence where I would come across a group of people that didn’t speak English.  Along with this new wonderful experience, there was misfortune.  It was no longer safe for me to travel alone anymore.  I would always need to be accompanied by someone older that could be trusted.  I couldn’t trust anyone I found that I didn’t already know, and I instead had to grow wary of talking to strangers.  These new experiences taught me a life lesson that I will never forget.  The home I once knew is completely different from the one I have now.  I believe in the differences between societies, the different day to day actions that we all go through without knowing it.