I came to the United States of Amer­ica on June 15, 1989.
22 years ago yesterday.

My fam­ily and I moved here because of my father’s work. The com­pany he worked for built a new plant in Michi­gan, so he and sev­eral of his cowork­ers were sent on a tem­po­rary assign­ment from Japan to US.

At the time of the move, the plan was for my father and us to stay in Michi­gan for 5 years and then go back to Japan.

5 years turned into 22. So far.

This anniver­sary of my “ta-da! I am now in the USA!” date used to be a big deal to me.
Year after year, it was a day of reflec­tion. There has been years when I would feel sad on this date because I missed Japan. There has been years when I would be filled with extra joy because I felt so for­tu­nate to be here in the US. Most of the time I would reflect and feel amazed at how my life was as it was because of the fate­ful move.

But then, after…oh I don’t know…10 years maybe… June 15 just became another day.
Before I would real­ize or think about any­thing, the date had passed and I didn’t really care.

Noth­ing spe­cial about another year pass­ing in the US, maybe because it was just now com­pletely nor­mal and also expected that I’m going to be here.

Yes­ter­day, how­ever, in the mid­dle of the day I remem­bered.
“Wow. It’s June 15 today. I’ve been in the US for 22 years.”

I remem­ber that day 22 years and 1 day ago, that when I got off the plane and walked around the air­port, one of the first things I noticed was the smell. Not a bad smell, but it was just dif­fer­ent. I must be odd, I’m sure, but even today I notice it, like when I fly to Japan the first thing I notice in the air­port is this dis­tinct (for me) smell that tells my body and my mind that I am now in Japan. And when I fly back to the US, it smells like I am back here. I am sure that sci­en­tif­i­cally there’s no “smell” for each coun­try, but my mind has pro­grammed and hyp­no­tized me to feel that way and since I don’t mind it I’m just going to keep feel­ing and enjoy­ing sniff­ing around each time I enter a dif­fer­ent country.

Unless there’s some nasty per­son with b.o. stand­ing next to me. Then no sniff­ing around…

Any­way, since I real­ized what day it was yes­ter­day, I spent the rest of the day in reflection.

I don’t think I need to tell you how much this move affected my life. I can­not imag­ine who I would be if I had stayed in Japan. Would I act the same? Speak (Japan­ese) the same? Would I even look the same?

How much of the cur­rent me is solely because I have been liv­ing in the US?

With lots of ques­tions and no answers, I went to din­ner with a group of friends. And at the din­ner table, these fol­low­ing coun­tries were rep­re­sented (in alpha­bet­i­cal order): Spain, Turkey, USA, and Venezuela. Five girls, all from dif­fer­ent coun­tries. Surely each of their cul­tures have shaped them dif­fer­ently than it has shaped me, but at din­ner it didn’t mat­ter. We all had a good time.

Then after din­ner I saw my boyfriend who is from Peru. We are learn­ing a lot about each other’s cul­ture, and I must admit some­times it clashes, but most of the time it doesn’t mat­ter.
…I think. Hmmm. I actu­ally need to think about this a lit­tle more.

Any­way, and then today I went to work and at the office saw my cowork­ers from Mex­ico and Korea. I have a lot more cowork­ers, and they, being the kind of depart­ment it is, are mostly from other coun­tries. Our staff meet­ing looks like a mini-UN meeting.

I am not say­ing peo­ple liv­ing in Japan have no chance of being in such cul­tur­ally diverse envi­ron­ment as I am now in. And I’m not say­ing liv­ing in the US auto­mat­i­cally pro­vides you with such diverse envi­ron­ment because there are many US cities that aren’t cul­tur­ally diverse.

But for me per­son­ally, I truly real­ized for the first time that mov­ing to the US not only opened up US cul­ture to me but to the cul­tures of the world.

But then that made me question…how Japan­ese am I? How Amer­i­can am I? What cul­ture am I representing?

Or does that even matter?

In my first blog entry I said I wanted to start build­ing me.
So, which cul­ture do I build on? Or am I going to merge the two cul­tures and if so how am I going to do that?
And, as if jug­gling two cul­tures isn’t bad enough, I am get­ting to know a lot of peo­ple from so many other cul­tures and every­one inspires me in one way or another. What do I do with those cul­tures I am exposed to and I admire?

This was def­i­nitely the most con­fus­ing June 15th I ever spent.
And I plan to keep ram­bling on about this in the next post…