Hello, everyone!
I feel great and a little nervous to be connected in this way because this is my first experience of learning online, making my own site and writing my opinion on my blog. Especially everything in English!!
Even now I can’t believe I am going to study in Canada.
My name is Hiromi.
In fact, I have some other name, Hiromi, Abby, A-bin, Rubin. I don’t mind that you call me whichever you want.
My Roots
I am from Japan, but I am originally from Taiwan.
My father who was a surgeon decided to go to Japan to take his thesis when I was 10 months. So, in my first memory of my childhood, I was already in Japan and I wonder why people always looked at me curiously and I had a different strange name from other people. Even though I have the same appearance as Japanese and speak fluent Japanese, people always treated me differently because there were few foreigners living in Japan at that time. It was embarrassing experience for young Rubin (my original Taiwanese name) to be treated as a Taiwanese because our family was so poor student family that we couldn’t go back to Taiwan for a long time until I grew older and I didn’t know about Taiwan at all. My parents who wanted to learn Japanese from me forced me to speak Japanese which I learned from TV and didn’t teach me Mandarin and Taiwanese. Because of that, afterwards when I visited Taiwan which I believed my home country, people and even my relatives treated me as a Japanese. The life was so tough and severe with lots of prejudice. Many parents didn’t allow me to play with their children. I often was yelled ” go back to your country!” When I was bullied, I couldn’t shared my feeling with my parents because of language barrier.
I always seek my identity“who am I? what I am?”
When I was 10 years old, one day my parents told me that we got Japanese citizenship and I became “Hiromi” from today! It was so shocked that I had to change my original name. I thought I was Rubin, A-bin (my Taiwanese nickname), or Abby (my English name from Taiwanese name) and I had been told I was different from everybody because I was not Japanese and now I became Japanese?? To my surprise, once I changed my name to Hiromi, the life turned to be very easy and smoothly to live.
I went to med school. became a plastic surgeon, met my husband and have 3 wonderful children.
4 years ago, I take sabbatical leave from my work and moved to Canada.
I would like to enhance my children’s education but also I would like them learn more about different cultures outside Japan and also for myself. Japan is surrounding by the ocean and even now I feel Japanese society is closed for both foreign people and Japanese people.
For a long time, I feel I don’t belong to anywhere and seek my root.
I feel comfortable to breath in Canada because nobody cares whichever I am Taiwanese or Japanese! At the beginning, I hesitated to say I am Japanese even I got Japanese passport for more than 30 years but gradually I feel more comfortable to think to be Japanese because I noticed my behavior (I am polite, have habit of bow often and good at using Emoji(^^♪), the way of thinking is mostly based on Japanese culture. Even I look like more Japanese compared to my cousin living in Taiwan. When I lived in Japan which is very homogenous country, I care what I am different from that monotone even it is subtle. The experience and exposure to the different other culture and people coming from the world opened my eye. Now I am happy that have dual cultural background. I noticed I can see the things objectively and uniquely .
My Career
I had worked as a plastic surgeon for 15 years when I lived in Japan.
Throughout my career, while my main role was that of a clinician, I was also promoted to become more directly involved with the hospital management teams and with various personnel affairs.
This role has reinforced my interest in studying how best to become a good team leader. The number of physicians and general medical staff members are chronically insufficient in many parts of Japan. Therefore, great leadership and management skills are essential to organize and maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of these limited teams to work to their greatest potential. At the same time, I was tired to balance my life as a full-time plastic surgeon and being mom for my three children without any help. Japanese working hour is so long that I could spend only two hours a day with my children. I knew it was hard for me to stop working in Japan because there are not enough plastic surgeons.
It was my choice to move to Canada to focus on the care and upbringing our three children for a while. I didn’t do anything but taking care of my children for three years.
As our children have settled well into their school-life here in Canada, I have found myself with more free time. Therefore, I began to think that I would make better use of my free time to enhance my medical career by going back to the higher education school system.
My Hobby
Now you know I have some different name, but why my blog name is Papagena?
I like travel and music. Especially my passion is on classical music.
Papagena is one of characters in Mozart’s popular opera Magic Flute.(Right picture from Los Angels Opera) I originally played the piano but shifted to play the violin and join the orchestra. Nowadays I restarted to play the piano for my daughter who plays the violin.
I love to live here in Canada but I am sorry to miss some cultural atmosphere.
One of my dream is living in Europe after my retirement someday.
Here is my introduction. I am excited to get to know you and look forward to walking along the journey of 501.