[Be determined and confident] 腹を決め、自信を持って

People often (so very often) say that ever since the IT revolution has taken place, the world seems to have changed dramatically with a great speed. They also say that the speed has getting even faster along with the trend of “globalization” or “internationalization”. Living here in Japan, there is no single day that I don’t hear such a word. You can hear someone mentioning it on the morning train, in a park or a lobby when you eat lunch, or in a restaurant or a hospital you may visit.

So many people say, “It is so cool you guys speak 2 or 3 languages at home.” The way they say it is almost like they are envious for someone who succeeded in a diet to become skinnier, or the face has become to look younger.

I can’t imagine a life without speaking multiple languages. I like where I am now and I am proud of being bilingual. I think it is a great benefit for my 13-year-old daughter to live with two languages. She speaks Japanese with her Japanese friends, while using English in her school as well as at home.

I'm pretty sure, however, there will be a time when she takes it negatively about it. She might feel she belongs nowhere. It is true that my family and I feel we are different here in Japan, but we also feel the same way out there in America, too. - We are different anywhere.

When you start thinking about it, you might want to say, “It is a great tragedy!” They might imagine a situation where a spirit that has nowhere to go after its physical life, just like the “Wandering Hollander”. – But it is out of the point.

The point here is that it is not to feel inferior or superior, but to be determined to be able to accept this "in-between" status between one language (culture) and another. That is a process through which bilingual (bicultural) individuals will feel comfortable to stay where they are, and they take pride in it. – There were times when such people were really hard to live because there was more ignorance or discrimination existing than there is now today.

The globalized economy is even good news to those who are growing or have grown bilingually.

I have come to think of Darwinism. There is a key word “survival of the fittest” by Charles Darwin that describes that suitable ones will be preserved in the struggle for life. I am not saying that just bilingual individuals are the fittest, but the world has become to consider more of them.

This “In-between” position, therefore, will no longer be considered unstable, but could be a distinctive category where such people live more comfortably in order to make more possitive impact on society.