Compulsory Gaijins?

When I used to be in the evenings a little more often than I am now sometimes I listened to a BBC World Service programme called “The Forum”. It is quite intellectual where four different people with entirely different areas of expertise come to discuss their areas of research/ art/ whatever in a deep discussion. Somewhow their totally disparate subjects are blended together well in a very clever way by some BBC researcher. I really like it, particularly one aspect of the hour long programme in the middle. The 1 minute idea. Basically, one of the invited people is asked to present an idea that they think will change the world. And to explain it in one minute.

Sometimes the ideas are really small – like having silence time in schools, and sometimes they are much bigger. Several months ago one person suggested that everyone should spend an extended period of time (say, a year) living in a foreign country.

I occasionally think this, and it came back to me recently. Living in Japan has been a brilliant experience for me. To come here has been the biggest challenge of my life, but without a doubt, the best thing I have decided to do. To talk about travel as widening your horizons is really a bit of an understatement. This 10 months in Japan has completely blasted open my horizons into entirely new dimensions! Except to put it like that makes it seem as though there was some explosion in my brain that occurred when the plane touched down and when I stepped out of Narita airport. Which did not happen at all, obviously. This horizon expansion is something incremental as I have experienced more and more of the Japanese way of life, values and how they do things. To the extent it has now become very big as I feel I have learnt so much more about life. I feel very widened is the best way I can think to describe it.

Living so outside of my culture and heritage in an other, I can view my culture, my upbringing, English values and way of life from the outside and from a place where things aren`t done in the same way. It has been refreshing I suppose. The best thing is that it makes you question a lot about your home culture and YOU! and why things a done in the way they are. Often I have found good things. And it is nice to appreciate them. And to not see them as something inevitable and normal. Because the fact they don`t exist here shows they`re not.

For me, one of my favourite aspects about living abroad is that I can now pick and choose from these two very different ways of living and working, how I want to live my life. (Obviously, you can only recreate the personal aspects of each culture that you like where you eventually decide to be – you can`t just bring back society-wide changes along with you! I won`t be able to bring back the safety of Japan with me).

I love the fact I have questioned the way English people do things, I love the fact that I want to have tatami mats in my own flat one day. I love the fact I want to ride my bike more. I love the fact I want to run around an office at work! I love the fact I want to eat like Japanese people. I love the fact I have discovered these things because I have lived in Japan.

I feel that my life has been made so much more richer, and I have so many more options for how I want aspects of my life to be, because of this experience abroad.

So, for me, living abroad for this time has been fantastic. Not only in terms of creating me more choices for my future, but also how much I have learnt about ME. The amount you learn is vast when you are a gaijin, in whatever country you go to, I am sure.

But to make it compulsory – a year abroad. That`s something I wonder about. For someone like me, who is fascinated by the different countries and cultures of the world, and takes such an active interest in them, it is not altogether that surprising that this year has been so successful. But imagine forcing it on other people. I guess it would widen their horizons. But some people don`t feel the need for it – like Mum for instance. Should someone who is happy where she is be forced to leave for a year? I don`t think so. But yet the benefits if you do do it though, are undeniable. But Mum and Dad both have lived in another culture – and they are connected to Europe and have knowledge of the French/ Italian way of things so they have already this experience perhaps.

Perhaps every YOUNG person should do it. Particularly in today`s globalised world we need to understand and be sensitive to other cultures more. (My latest job idea is to be a cross-cultural consultant for businesses operating overseas – the amount of help that having cultural knowledge has to businesses is definitely big I think).
It has benefitted me massively - so maybe more people should do it. Though, I am wary of this bright little idea, and it`s effects on the environment what with people developing relationships criss-crossing the globe. It`s hardly going to do much for reducing plane travel I don`t think.