Speaker #0Hello everyone! Bonjour tout le monde! Minna-san, Konbanwa! Today I wanted to talk about my multicultural journey and its ups and downs. Just to share a little bit about who I am, but also if through this share I can inspire or... support some of you, that would be great because I know that so many of us, we go through a multicultural journey, whether it's our identity, we are multicultural, multiracial, or we grew up in another country, or we moved to another country. All of us, most of us, we are in this situation. So how it started? So I grew up in France and Japan. as a half French and half Japanese. So in Japan, we call people like me half, which means we are half, which is not always very, very positive in a sense because if we talk about being, it's like almost being half human. But the truth is in Japan, it's more what we call a positive discrimination because half or usually they have, you know, we are welcome. It's not like... We don't have a negative discrimination, but that could be another story too. It depends. We all have a different experience, of course. But when I grew up, when I moved to Japan at six years old, I was always trying to fit in, you know, and to become Japanese because I don't look like Japanese, but I was trying very hard to become like other kids. You know, when you're six years old, you want to become like a friend. So I was trying to... to be more, perhaps to change my behavior, to be more kawaii. And I even learned, of course, the language when I moved to Japan at six, and I became fluent. And I was really frustrated because even though I could speak like a dam, and I was half Japanese, I was never... considered one of them i was always the gaijin what we call gaijin which is um which means foreigner but not in a very polite way the polite way would be gai kokujin but i was called gaijin or amerikajin people would call me american because all white people or americans were americans to to their eyes and so when i grew up i was trying so hard to become um like Japanese. Through also my clothes, I would wear pink and kawaii clothes and you know. So I was trying very hard and I was doing what we call assimilation, you know, when you try to assimilate, you try to become like others, you do what is called assimilation or you know, it's usually it's not really... If we talk about a little bit of technical vocabulary, when we talk about inclusion, it's about including people who are different. But when we do assimilation, actually, it's like considering that everybody is the same. So I was trying to myself become like everybody else, but it was not working, right? And at 15, I moved to France. And again, I had... to do this style switching or code switching to switch my behavior to become french and so i changed my clothes i i was wearing not any more pink but more black and brown and gray colors you know and so i was also trying to to become like others and but i could never be considered a french because i was half Asian, so, you know. And something that happened at 19 years old is that I met my best friend who allowed me to really be myself. She said, she told me, you know, you can, because at school, I would use my name, Laurence, which is my first name, actually, Laurence Yuko. Yuko is my second name, but I use Yuko. Because my parents call me Yuko, it's my name since my childhood. And so my best friend told me, you know, you don't need to be called Laurence at school and Yuko at your house anymore. You know, you don't have to have these two identities. You know, you can be just Yuko. everywhere. And so that's when I started really to embrace this, okay, I'm half Asian and I am Yuko everywhere, even if I live in France. And so that was like big shifts at 19 years old. And that's also the year I met my husband, who is also French, Vietnamese, Vietnamese, but he was born and raised in France. So, you know, I was really in this Asian. environment in France because even though he grew up in France he is he also has the Vietnamese culture you know so just to tell you that because I think when we have a different multicultural identity it's always so easy to try to become like you know in my case French or try to become like Japanese and then we get confused and now I live in Japan again for the past six months and I have a totally different experience because now that I'm 40 you know I am embracing who I am and I'm laughing about it you know it's so when people ask me oh where do you come from or how come you you speak Japanese so well or you arrived just six months ago and you speak like that wow and people are surprised because they don't know that I'm half Japanese, they don't guess from my physical appearance and now it's amusing me you know it's like I'm I like having those questions because it allows me to introduce myself introduce who I am and introduce my background and people are always very curious and people love France and they love Paris when I tell them I come from Paris they're like wow they have the The stars in their eyes and they ask questions about France and they tell me that they visited France. And so it's a great icebreaker, I would say. It's great to be different from others. And also it's a great way, I would say, to be remembered because I am unique, but you're also unique. We are all unique. And I think the goal of this share is... Just to highlight the fact that it is so important to embrace our uniqueness because you know what? There is a quote that I love that is, be yourself because everybody else is taken already. So be yourself, everyone else is taken. And when you're yourself, you allow the curiosity, you allow people wanting to know who you are and to ask questions. And I think it's too tiring to try to be like others, to try to be someone we are not. It's already, I think, enough just to embrace who we are, to love ourselves for who we are. And that's a journey. It's a lifelong journey. So it doesn't happen overnight. I still work on myself. Of course, there are still times when I judge myself or I'm thinking like, oh, I'm not enough of that or I should be more of that or I should know more of that. Of course, like everyone, we are human beings. We have the critical mind. And at the same time, I think it's very important to remember that we are evolving every day, every day, every day. The Yuko I am today was not the one. last month, last year, and it's not the Yuko that will be next month, next year. So there is no point trying to fit in a box, you know, and fitting in just finding one label. It's not possible. We all have so many labels. You know, for me, I am French, I'm Japanese, but I also lived in the US for nine years. I lived in UK, in China. Now I live in Japan again as a mom and as a spouse. And I have other labels too, like we all do. I am a life coach. I am a mom of two daughters. I am a spouse. I am a sister. I am a daughter, you know. I am an auntie. So many. We have so many labels. I love dance. And so just let's embrace all our labels without asking too many questions. Sending you lots of love. Bye-bye. mata ne sayonara!
