jas & suzy

Back in the US, there’s much talk in many different environments (in school, work, as well as the nation at large) about diversity. Diversity, we are told, is integral in order to make our lives rewarding and purposeful; only by being exposed to worldviews and opinions different to ours can we truly become self-actualized and vibrant individuals.

Well, let me tell you – diversity in the US ain’t got nothing on the diversity happening here. I’ve spoken of it before but it is consistently amazing to me that I have neighbors from 4 different continents, and from an absolutely absurd amount of countries. My friend and neighbor Suzy is a prime example of this. From Cairo, Egypt, she is a practicing – I daresay devout – Muslim. She wears her hijab – her traditional headscarf – every day, unless she is inside her own room. Furthermore, she abstains entirely from alcohol and can only eat halal meat, which not surprisingly is exceedingly hard to come by in this country.

Another neighbor and friend of mine is Jasvandi. Jas, as we call her, is from Pune, India. She speaks 4 languages – English, Japanese, Hindi, and her regional Indian language – fluently. I am astonished by this, and deeply envious. I barely process English correctly, and here’s this girl running linguistic circles around me four times over. Most fascinating of all of this is the fact that Jas and Suzy communicate best with one another in Japanese; an Egyptian girl and an Indian girl both communicating in a language native to neither of them. There's something deeply poetic about this, and endlessly fascinating.

My point is, it is entirely due to my coming to Japan that I experienced these people and their incredible relationship to one another. Through speaking and interacting with both of them, I have come to understand a bit better this massive world we live in and be exposed further to its intricacies. That's diversity