Most people answering this question might either say Dubai, the United Kingdom, America, or even Canada. A place that has a big name, working infrastructures, a recognizable skyline, better manpower, and good opportunities that photograph well. Well, my own thoughts go differently and far away from that.
My choice will be Japan without having a second thought. Not because they have outstanding technology or some lovely goods, though both are adequate and good reasons. I will choose and decide to go to Japan because that country is the sharpest possible contrast to everything I was raised inside, and I think that contrast would teach me things about myself that comfort never could.
I grew up in a country and neighborhood where silence was suspicious. Most people believe that if something is noisy, it means something is happening. People overstep boundaries and invade each other's spaces freely, eat each other's food without asking, and know what someone is up to even before giving full details. Privacy has never been the value, and the way I see it, I don't think it exists yet with what has been happening so far.
But from what I have seen, read, and watched, I believe that moving to Japan and looking at their household, I will be forced to sit with myself in a way that I have never been required to. Looking at those free and quiet spaces. Intentional meals. Their culture and how they then deliberately communicate volumes through all those small small gestures rather that declaration. I know that I will not easily adapt to those things for some months.
But what is life without trying to go for what I really want instead of being stuck on a point? To me, that discomfort that comes with it is the exact point. Because I will finally get to know myself more and get to realize which parts of myself are actually mine when everything familiar has been renamed, I get to see what actually is left. Because I want so much to know who I really am when no one is asking and when no one is watching me. And I feel I will return in a transformed way, different and quieter in the right place.
Thank you for reading.
Images created by Gemini AI
