the mixed kid dilemma (half Swiss half Japanese)
Being mixed is weird. Sometimes it feels like you fit in everywhere. Other times you feel like a foreigner everywhere. Sometimes you feel special. Other times like a complete nobody. Hello, my name is Saudi. My dad is from Switzerland and my mom from Japan. And today I want to talk about my love and hate relationship with BIM mixed. Let’s call it the mixed identity crisis. As a kid, be mix felt kind of cool. In Switzerland, everybody asked me where I was from. And when I told them that my mom was from Japan, they had tons of questions and they were interested in learning about the culture. They just made me feel like an interesting person. In Japan, everybody told me that I looked pretty because in Japan, basically, every mixed kid is considered beautiful. So, they just made me feel like I had that little extra that others didn’t have. Then high school came and with it a lot of insecurity. I had one best friend, but she often spent time with her boyfriend, so I had to branch out. I tried to fit in the hippie group, the posh party girls, and even though I did make new friends, I never felt like I truly belonged anywhere. I always felt different, like I just didn’t fit in somehow. So, I often ended up eating lunch by myself, either at the park or at the library. and I came to the conclusion that I’m just not a group person and I just enjoy one-on-one conversations. University fortunately changed everything. That’s where I regained my confidence, found my real self and my real friends, the friends that I still have today. And funny enough, most of them are either mixed or have some kind of international background. And that makes me think that maybe people that are mixed or have this kind of different and international backgrounds can relate to each other in a way that individuals with pure backgrounds cannot. There are some things that only people with two cultural roots can truly understand as there are some other things that only people with pure backgrounds can really get. So here are three things that I love about being mixed. The first one is cultural sensitivity. Growing up with two parents with two completely different cultures makes you more empathetic. It makes you curious about why people behave in a certain way. You try to avoid judging because you know how powerful a culture is in impacting someone’s behavior. I know that my mom behaves in a certain way. Not only because she has a certain personality, but because she grew up in Japan where, you know, there are some traditions and cultures that are completely different from Switzerland. These kind of things just make you realize that the way someone behaves is not always just about their personality or the personality of their parents, but is really shaped by the culture where they come from. Language skills. Obviously, as a mixed person, you often grow up speaking two different languages, which is not only awesome in itself, but it also helps you to learn other languages in a easier way compared to people who grow up speaking only one language. Perspective. When you grow up being aware of two different cultures, you’re able to use different lenses to analyze different situations. Sometimes I examine something from a Japanese perspective and other times more from the Swiss perspective. It’s not that I do it like mentally. I’m like, “Oh, now I’m going to analyze it from the Japanese perspective.” But I think that it just comes naturally that sometimes for some situations or some problems I take more a Japanese way of thinking and sometimes a more Swiss one which is enriching and it just gives you the capability to see things from different angles which I think it’s really a good strength to have not only professionally but also in your personal life and in all areas of your life. Besides all of these amazing things, I really do think that being mixed is amazing and it has a lot of blessings. There is also a big big downside in my opinion, identity. I always ask myself, what am I? Am I Swiss Japanese? Am I both? Am I neither? This is something that I started really thinking about as I became an adult because I still do have the feeling that wherever I go, I never really fit in or I never really belong. In Switzerland, which is where I spend most of my life, people constantly ask me where I’m from. And in Japan, people just suppose that I’m a foreigner and they speak to me directly in English. So, I’m a foreigner wherever I go. And although I can relate to a lot of things that people in Switzerland and in Japan have, I just cannot fully relate to neither. In Switzerland, I can really relate to the love of nature that people have, the structural thinking they have, but I cannot relate to the lifestyle goals they have. And in Japan, I love people’s respect, the politeness, and the kindness, which I can relate to, but I cannot relate at all with people’s indirectness and way of communicating. I’m also way too individualistic to be a real Japanese. So yeah, I am Japanese and I am Swiss, but I’ll never be fully neither. And I’ve learned to accept that. Instead of focusing over which box I fit in, I started to focus on learning more of both cultures and becoming more of both. Last year I had the fortune to spend four months in Japan and I spent three of them with my Japanese grandma and she taught me so much about the Japanese culture cooking and it was awesome. It just made me feel like I integrated within myself some more Japanese aspects. I just felt like I became a little bit more Japanese. I’ll never be fully Japanese but still learning more about one side of your culture allows you to become a little bit more of that culture if that makes sense. And same in Switzerland now that I’m back in Switzerland embracing more hiking and all these kind of Swiss things. So I’m trying to learn more about both of the cultures and becoming more of them. And that is beautiful. If you’re a mixed person, you just have to accept that you’ll never be fully neither in my opinion, but you have the power to become more of both, which is amazing. So I really hope that you enjoyed this video and that it made you think. Please let me know where you’re from or where your parents are from. I would love to know. And yeah, I wish you a beautiful day and talk to you very soon. [Music]
I want you to know that I absolutely love being mixed. I think that the advantages you get from being biracial are way bigger than the big identity struggle that comes with it.
I wanted to share this video with you because I really really struggled with identity until recently, when I made the mindset shift that helped me see that, even though I might never be able to become fully Japanese and/or Swiss, I can become more of both. And isn’t that … beautiful?
Yes, we might not fit in fully anywhere, but we somehow can fit in everywhere. And we’ve got different lenses to see and analyze the world from different angles, and that’s an invaluable blessing we’ve got from being mixed race.
Instead of focusing over which box we fit, let’s focus on learning more about both of our parents’ heritage and cultures .. we haven’t gotten only one culture to learn from, but 2??! How lucky are we??
Anyways, let me know what you think about this video and please share your story! I’d love to hear from you ❤️
Time stamps:
00:25 childhood
00:49 highschool
01:25 university
02:02 3 advantages of being a mixed race person
03:44 the big identity struggle
05:08 how I deal with the identity crisis in a constructive and positive way
Movie clips credit:
– The One Where Chandler Crosses the Line (retrieved from friendsdeletedscenes6030=
– Mean Girls (retrieved from randomnessfave)
– Dark Shadows (retrieved from Milkdrunky)
– Euphoria S2 E6 (retrieved from TheCulturedQueen)
Other clips credit:
– Joyce Wrice – Homecoming (retrieved from JoyceWrice)
– Nice to Each Other (retrieved from oliviadean)
– Footage of people walking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d_iBRRVlVE
– Kiko Mizuhara 水原希子 – CM Collection 2015 (retrieved from TeamMizuhara)
– Amber Mark – Let Me Love You (Behind The Scenes) – retrieved from AmberMark333
Music Credit:
🎵 Music “Daisy Field” by ‘7&Nine & Casey Heyo’
• 7&nine & casey heyo – daisy field 🌼 relaxi…
💿 Listen everywhere:
https://lofihiphop.de/daisyfield
✅ For more Copyright Free Music visit:
https://youtube.tamamusic.com
Tags: mixed race kids,mixed race asian,mixed race in japan,mixed race combination,half asian half white,half asian half white girl,half japanese half white,being mixed race,what it’s like being mixed race,struggles of being mixed race,struggles of being mixed,struggles of being biracial,mixed kids,mixed race,mixed race problems,mixed race identity issues,identity crisis mixed race,mixed race identity,half japanese half white girl
Subscriber count: 1’816