Smelling the Roses

I have lived in 3 countries (and worked in 2 of them) in my life. I was born and raised in Singapore. Moved to Perth, Western Australia, in 2005 after my husband and I got married. In 2007, I resigned from my job in Perth and moved back to Singapore (where my husband accepted a work assignment) just before giving birth to Aiden. And in early 2009, we relocated to Japan because my husband accepted a job offer that contracted him for a year. We extended our contract here in January this year and will probably be in Japan until God knows when.

Being educated in Singapore, I am very used to the pressure cooker style of life. The pace in Singapore is very fast and life can be hectic. People are competitive. The whole nation is forever in pursuit of a so called "better life", generally translated as "life with material comforts". It's like if you live in a big house, I want to live in a bigger one. For this, people work very hard just so they can satisfy their material wants. This becomes a vicious cycle where the whole nation simply gets trapped in this hectic, stressful lifestyle where people tend to put all their energy into pursuing their careers and everything else in life becomes secondary.

It was only after I moved to Perth that I finally found the meaning of family life. To me, Perth is like a country city. It is very quiet. I could finish work at 5pm. My bosses respected my personal time and family life. And for the first time, I got acquainted with nature. I found work very shortly after I moved to Perth. Since we had no children at that time, and the city is quiet with not much to do anyway, I pretty much focused my energy on furthering my career. For that 2 years, I enjoyed my work a lot but towards the end of my time there, I got fairly stressed up with several work challenges and juggling 2 roles at the same time. It also didn't help that I was pregnant then.

At present, I have been living here in Japan for 18 months. I am not able to work here because I can't speak the language. Besides, I have a child to look after and I don't have family to rely on. As an expat, it is also hard to forge any good, solid friendships as the other expats come and go all the time. Everytime I thought I have found someone I can click with, she informs that she is leaving soon. I have no family here, and neither do I have any actual real friends. When I go to the shops, I cannot understand what the locals say to me most of the time. Neither can they understand my almost non-existent grasp of the japanese language. So why am I still always saying that I enjoy living in Japan?

Because for the first time in my life, I feel that I have finally slowed down. My situation in Japan has forced me to slow down. I go to the playgrounds with Aiden and we count the crawling ants together. When he is happy playing the slides by himself, I sit on the bench and read. When I'm not reading, I watch and observe the other mothers and kids at the park. Aiden and I take walks in the neighbourhood and we talk about the birds and changing seasons. I see some mothers cycling past me with a child in her backseat and I watch and observe in awe how they can balance so well with shopping bags infront and a toddler at the back. I channel all my time and energy in nurturing my child and taking care of my husband. I get to witness all of Aiden's milestones. And I get to enjoy his hugs and kisses thru out the day.

There are always so many ways to look at a situation. My life in Japan may be described as lonely if I want to look at it negatively. But in my opinion, I am finally enjoying life. And it is a really nice feeling to be able to slow down and take notice of the flowers on the street.