I grew up in a place that experienced the atomic bombing, known as Hiroshima, Japan. Since elementary school, I was taught to fold origami cranes and pray for world peace, so the word “peace” has always been in my mind. At the same time, I always had a feeling of “Why?”- Why do cars move? Why is the sky blue? Why was the Earth created? Why are we alive?
As I spent every day thinking about the reasons why we are alive, I realized that I have value with people, and a destiny was born in me to live by doing something useful for others.
However, as I learned about wars and educational disparities in the news, I found myself feeling helpless because the world seemed so far away and I could do nothing to help, even though there were people all over the world who needed help.
My view of the world changed when I was a university student, when I went outside of Japan for the first time in my life. I studied abroad in the U.S. and traveled alone in Southeast Asia, visiting many different countries. There I met many people and received a lot of kindness. When I was suffering from a stomachache, a person who passed by on the street gave me medicine. When I was lost, a person nearby gave me directions, and when we said goodbye, he gave me a letter and a cute alarm clock. That person is a friend with whom I still keep in touch.
This trip abroad made me feel closer to the world. My perspective on things became much broader, and I began to think of “people from other countries” as “people from the same planet. Even though we are of different nationalities, we are all human beings, and we are all connected and moving forward.
On the other hand, I could not speak English at that time, so I had to communicate in other ways. If I could have spoken English or the local language, I would have been able to deepen our connection through dialogue. This experience made me frustrated with my inability to communicate, and I studied hard to learn the language. We need more dialogue. When we have friends all over the world, there will be love and kindness, not hatred.
My dream is to connect the world through dialogue. For this dream, I worked for four years in an educational administrative agency to review Japanese education, where English proficiency has been low. After that, while working as a tour guide at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, I started my own business in the fields of English conversation and Japanese language classes, web design, and tourism inbound business, and am working hard to create a system to connect the world.
“Knowing people reduces wars.” Believing these words, I continue to take actions today.