My world is different. My world is quiet and peaceful. People are friendly and nice in my world. Language is soft and lilting. Girls are thin and beautiful. My name is Hiroko, I’m from Japan.

Life is different in Japan on all levels. This ‘otherness’ might not be recognized immediately by the foreigner that arrives in Tokyo or any other big city, but the spirit of Oriental world is everywhere, you just have to look around. All that we, the Japanese, do and say is symbolic and makes sense. We usually do not use direct words to express what we feel, what’s inside. You can never hear words like ‘I love you’, or ‘You are beautiful’ from the Japanese. Instead, we would say ‘I’m so happy to die with you’, ‘You have an angelic smile’, ‘I’ll die for you’ or at least ‘You are thinner than before’. Anything like abovementioned would make any Japanese girl happy.

This is the only way to say what you want to say. My father proposed to my mother in a way that wouldn’t be acceptable in any other place. He said: “I can die for you. Will you stay with me forever?”

So I grew up, diligent and shy, and sometimes men said that I was like a flower or like an angel, making me even shier.

I was doing my school good enough to get an international scholarship of one of those organizations that discover young talents in everything and give the chance to spend one year in the USA. I was 20 already but this was the first time I was uprooted all that suddenly and unexpectedly.

I was shocked when I came to the USA. Bustling streets, people are in a hurry chasing time, money and life. Eating culture is also totally different. People mostly eat fast food, because they are too busy for anything else. The taste is quite different too, though seemed to me delicious and so much food for a fairly small amount of money.

I was getting used to the fast mode of life, found new friends soon, both Americans and foreigners; all of them were friendly and nice that I felt quite happy, even though I was uprooted from my family.

And they are so direct and determined, the Americans, it’s hard to explain to them why I blushed every time they used to say anything that slightly resembled compliments.

I wasn’t that much excited soon because I noticed that I started looking worse. No make up, casual clothes, and, what a shame, I was getting fatter. I didn’t notice that till I came home for winter vacations and my parents were obviously shocked. They already found a boyfriend for me but when I he saw me I read that sort of surprise on his face that strikes you when you expect to see a princess but meet a frog.

I got back to the USA, fat and unhappy, burst into tears the first night and decided to never go back home, because they all hated me. I’m ugly, I thought. No one will ever want me in this life.

I told one of my American friends about it and she got to help the nice girl as I was. She was taking me to the gym every second day and in a month time I lost all the stubborn extras. It was a nice feeling to go back home and see my parents and friends. Well, the guy that my parents had chosen for me changed his mind rapidly, but I try thinking that it was the first time when he saw the humble beauty of human soul. And by the way, I received a message from my boyfriend these days. It says: “I feel that I could die for you!”

Hiroko, 22