Hey everyone,
I was actually born in Japan, but neither of my parents are Japanese. We lived here for about 5 years when I was young before moving overseas.
Recently, I decided to move back on my own, and it’s been a pretty surreal experience, kind of like returning “home,” but also feeling like a total foreigner at the same time.
I’m curious if anyone else has a similar background?
Being born here but not Japanese, or having lived here as a kid and coming back as an adult.
How did it feel for you?
by MrOkonomiyaki
18 comments
not my experience, but reminds me of “fear and trembling” (film based on a novel)
Tell us more about what makes it familiar and foreign. Do you speak Japanese? How does that inform your experience. Are you returning as a person in their 20s, 30s etc?
Do you walk around with your passport?
Not my experience but have you ever seen this YouTube video? There are interviews with several people who had that exact experience: https://youtu.be/rANeXeG5riQ?si=Wbqia7c_7pU4WjA_
You might want to check out r/TCK and might share that “I don’t belong anywhere but belong everywhere” feeling with that community
You’re like a salmon. I was “Made in Japan”. My American parents lived here for my father’s job (not military) and my mother left in the middle of her pregnancy, so I was born in the US a few months later. Not a quite a salmon.
I do think your experience is interesting. I was born in the US but have spent the large majority of my life in Japan, and I do not feel any connection to Wisconsin (where I was born) as “home” in any sense. I was just born there, nor do I barely remember my short time living there. You feel like a foreigner in Japan because you are a foreigner, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Here is my 100% honest comment. I feel like a gaijin.
Someone already downvote when im a have parents not Japanese both have different backgrounds and i live here in Japan all my life. 😆
My daughter is going to be exactly the same
My daughter (2.5 yo) was born here, but we are Australian and American. It’s funny to see TOKYO as her place of birth on her US passport. She learns Japanese at daycare and is starting to know when and where to use Japanese vs English. She “uses” chopsticks as good as a fork too (I say “uses” as it’s really just a two-stick scoop). I’m really curious how it’ll be for her once she is older either here or back home.
Could you tell us more about what particularly made you feel that way?
I lived here in my mid twenties for 10 years, making it the longest place I ever lived anywhere, since I moved various cities as a kid. Moved back to the US for ten years and now back in Japan again feeling at home and also just… myself. You really start to see how nationalistic identities are a hallucination. We are all our parents children, raised with stories about the world. Some of those stories are like those of the people we are neighbors with, but those stories don’t make us the same. Our faces don’t make us the same either. All of these are just ways people treat one another as NPCs without really knowing the inner life of those around them nor how very different we all are.
This is why people in a small town can feel trapped by the intimate assumed relationship all the townsfolk take with you, and how in contrast people can find their own truest community sometimes when they just find their friends
Not me, but my two friends were born in japan and are half Japanese, went to japanese school until college where they moved to the US (where i met them) and moved back 4 years later to work at the family business. They tell me they are still treated like foreigners, but they learned to lean into the MURICA side since they say it interests people there haha
I noticed that a lot of times it comes down to whether you went to school here and can share the same memories or experiences with others.
A friend of mine was born overseas but lived in Japan since he was 5 and went to school here and he’s “more Japanese” (What a weird thing to say) than other people that were born here but grew up overseas.
I’m a complete foreigner who was born and raised in Funabashi, Chiba for the first 11 years of my life.
I’ve visited Japan ever since a few times, and would like to live there again.
It truly is surreal. Begin twice the height that you were when you lived there is quite trippy.
Waking around my hometown gave me a sense of peace and security, as well as awe and nostalgia, like I could just sit all day at the park where I used to play with my friends, or walk my favourite path to the subway station over and over.
When I walk where I used to live, go to school, and take the train, I’m completely immersed in my surrounding and feel as though I’m back in time when I lived there,
but in the back of my mind, I know that no matter how natural I feel in this place, I’ll always be “a foreigner” to everyone’s eyes.
Would love to connect with people who have similar experience!
There’s plenty of children of either international diplomats or US military personnel with Japan listed as their birthplace in their passports.
I was born on the military base in Yokosuka but we moved to the US when I was 2. I just wrapped up a 3 week “homecoming” trip which I’ve been planning for at least 5-10 years. This was my first time leaving the US since I was born. We had an incredible experience. We concluded with a day trip to Kamakura so my fiance and I hopped over to Yokosuka where we met some of my parents old Japanese colleagues. Even though we only spent 2-3 hrs in Yokosuka, it was an incredibly emotional experience being in my hometown again and was a highlight of our trip.
How much do you actually remember? I mean you were like 5 when you left. How does that even feel like ‘returning home’ to you?
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