Asahi
Unlike many Asahi students, I was born and raised in the United States. I have never lived in Japan, although I’ve visited there many times. I’m told I learned to speak Japanese before English, but by the time I entered Asahi in the first grade I spoke English better. As a result, Asahi was a completely novel and different experience. Everything was unfamiliar to me: the students, the teachers, the culture.

Initially I felt like a foreigner, as I did in Japan, despite being surrounded by others who looked like me. Everything from the way I dressed to the way I laughed and ate (not to mention the way I spoke the language) marked me as an outsider. Gradually, however, I began to make friends at Asahi and learn my way. As a result, Asahi became my gateway to a new world; I was able to write letters to my grandparents in Japanese, spend a summer semester in Japan attending an elementary school, and generally not feel as much like a foreigner when visiting Japan.

It also allowed me to compare the American and Japanese educational systems. Teachers in my American school criticized me for being quiet in class, while my Japanese teachers praised me for the same thing. This was a little confusing at first, but it eventually gave me a unique perspective on education and culture; it taught me to see the pros and cons of different approaches and not to take the status quo for granted.

Harvard University
After graduating from high school, I went to Harvard University where I majored in English. There I encountered other students like myself, American-born but Japanese by descent. I was surprised to find that a number of them spoke little or no Japanese and were taking beginner Japanese language classes at Harvard. Some of them had even attended a Japanese school on Saturday, but these schools were very different from Asahi and were not always very educational. This was when I finally realized exactly how much I owed my parents for making me attend Asahi. I realized how easily I could have grown up in ignorance of Japanese language and culture. Up till then, I really thought that being of Japanese descent meant that you “automatically” spoke Japanese.

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
After Harvard I attended medical school at University of Pennsylvania. I had a unique opportunity to get a firsthand glimpse of Japanese medical education when I applied for and was awarded a Noguchi Foundation Fellowship to do a rotation at a Japanese hospital. Most medical students who received this fellowship spoke no Japanese and therefore acted as observers during their rotation. Due to my knowledge of Japanese, I was lucky enough to dive in headfirst and take a more active role in taking care of patients and presenting cases at rounds. I was even asked to give a formal talk to the medical staff about the differences between American and Japanese medical education - I was proud to be able to give the talk in Japanese.

Columbia University Division of Infectious Diseases
I now live in New York and am Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Columbia University. Given my patient population, I use mostly Spanish and English at work. However, I do see the occasional patient who only speaks Japanese and am sometimes asked to translate for other doctors when they have Japanese patients. I also still keep in touch with some of the physicians I met in Japan and may be returning to some of the hospitals to speak about my specialty, hospital-acquired infections and antibiotic resistance. Infectious diseases is still a new specialty in Japanese medicine and Japanese physicians sometimes overuse antibiotics, leading to antibiotic resistance. I have been asked to give them some guidance in preventing antibiotic-resistant infections. I hope that I can share some of my professional expertise and experience with my colleagues in Japan, and to learn from them as well.

Looking back
Sometimes I wondered why I, living in the U.S., needed to learn so much about Japanese language, culture, and history. I always knew I would never live in Japan, so why spend so much time and energy studying these things? Looking back, it was difficult giving up all of my Saturdays and doing extra homework when all my friends were sleeping, playing, and watching TV. But I gradually realized that what I gained in return for my Saturdays was something truly priceless. I’ve had countless people tell me how envious they are that I am fluent in several languages and that I am the product of two cultures. There have been times when I wished I weren’t a “Japanese-American,” that I were just Japanese or just American; I’m sure my life would have been simpler. However, I’ve grown to cherish this duality. Asahi allowed me to develop the side of myself that could have easily been suppressed by my American side. I can now really appreciate the best of both worlds.