Who cares if it was unfortunate or not, but I have grown up with more than two cultures in my life history. When I was abroad, I thought of myself as representing the Japanese. Everyone told me that I was a Japanese, and without doubt, I was one. When I came back to Japan, though, I was a stranger. They called me first  "gaikoku-gaeri (returned from a foreign contry)", then the name they called me changed from "kikokushijo" to "kikoku". Some even began to call our friends "bilin-gals".

I had to be a Japanese, but the Japanese around me seemed to have thought of me as a foreigner. Somehow, what I did and thought seemed to have been different from others. In class, when the teacher was accusing us of some mischief that the class had done, I was the only one to meet the gaze of the teacher; everybody else were looking down at the desk and quiet, but I was arguing with the teacher. Sometimes, I couldn't help but notice that I was the only one in class with a raised hand. In English classes there was always a strange uproar when I was assigned to read the textbook. I didn't make much of these incidents, but it seems I was the queer fish among them. The Japanese would not look at me as an ordinary Japanese.

As I kept on living in Japan, I noticed that I was criticizing the ways of Japan, its people, and its society: the infamous entrance examination system, group orientedness, conformism, etc. I never got used to doing things "everybody all together, nobody standing out, and in harmony". Sometimes it seemed easier to get along with foreigners. But I'm not a foreigner, am I?

Then, what am I?

When I started to work, and had chances to visit other countries, there were always times when I would not want to go back to Japan. But when I remembered the faces of the friends that I got to know while living in Japan, I would think that however hard it is to work and live there, I would go back.

Then came the day when I noticed that the question "what am I?" had somehow turned into the question "who am I?". No longer did I need to think in terms of nationality, or being a Japanese or a foreigner, or whatever. All I had to question was how am I going to live? what am I going to do and with whom? where am I going to have a place to live? for what am I going to be living?

I am here, alive. That was the answer. Day after day, I meet people. I work. I have fun. I rest. I am well. No doubt, I have a plural number of cultural heritages in my background. It still seems that my thoughts and actions are not exactly like "ordinary" Japanese. But so what, I am myself. I came to want to get together with those people who have multiple cultures within themselves. Both in Japan and abroad, there are people with plurality: Those foreigners who've grown up in Japan. Those who went on studies abroad. Those whose father and mother have different heritages. Not even across national borders. If you think of cultures as not relevant to nationalities, there are huge differences even within Japan: Tokyo and Osaka. Rural and metropolitan. Even within Tokyo: Uptown and downtown. Broadway and off-Broadway. Cultural differences can be found anywhere: Between men and women. Even you and I have cultural differences in between. Anytime when one meets another, the two will live in a cultural diversity. Everybody is a singular culture by him/herself.

Therefore, I want to be myself.
I want you to be yourself.
An expert in being oneself,
that's what I want to be.