Anniversary

No, it's not my wedding anniversary. Today marks one year since I moved from the United States to Japan, and what a strange and wonderful year it has been.

I've seen (and explained) many of the "little differences" that I've encountered over the past year, but I haven't touched on one important "little difference," and that is me.

It is a strange feeling to be living in a country that you weren't born in, I can begin understand how immigrants in America feel. But moving from a foreign country to the US is totally different than moving from the US to a foreign country. At least in America everyone can blend in, here in Japan, I will never blend in.

No matter how fluent with the language and familiar with the customs of Japan I become, my pale skin, round blue eyes and blond hair (what there is of it) will always brand me as a foreigner.

And that's OK.

Even in America, I was always a little different, a little strange; at least in Japan, it will be expected of me.