"I"m neither an American nor Japanese and I"m an American and Japanese at the same time. It sometimes confuses me and I keep asking myself who I am," my Japanese-American friend said to me once before. I didn't know what to say, but I was thinking about what he said and the answer to his question could be why I am in America now. .
Two years ago, I went to the East coast on our school trip. There I communicated with people who had the different backgrounds from mine for the first time. I stayed with an American family during my stay in Boston. Everything was new to me; from the size of a coffee cup to their way of thinking and feeling. Though it was exciting to experience the different culture, but at the same time it was hard to understand it sometimes. Through the stay with the American family, I got shocked, surprised and confused many times. On the last day of my stay, I was feeling they"re my real family. We had a great time together even though we had a hard time to understand each other sometimes. We shared our laughter, impressions, anger, tears and joy. There was no difference between our smiles and tears. Through this experience, I found the difference between the backgrounds is not important. We can communicate with what we all have; the eyes to tell our passion, the smile to show our joy, and the heart to feel the love. .
After I came back from the school trip, I started to think of studying abroad. The more I got interested in the world, the more I got to feel like doing something for the world frictions. The world situation was getting worse and worse since the 9/11. I wanted to see and learn the different races and cultures in the world and to know if it's true that we can overcome the differences in our backgrounds, like I experienced in Boston. I believed it would be the key to solve the world frictions.
I chose America to study my major - International Relations, which I found was the study I needed and wanted.