Megumi Yoshinaga: What Matters Most

How They Did it – Stories for Migrants by Migrants

I’d heard it jokingly said often enough by family and friends, about how Japan was the answer to their problems. Personally, I didn’t find it funny at all: Was it in fact really the answer to the problems? It got me thinking.

The first time I met my father was back in August 2016. I had gone to Japan with no expectations whatsoever and if it turned out that he was happy to see me, then well and good. If he was not, that was fine by me, too. I would always be grateful to him, anyway, for the gift of life he had given me.

I had been told repeatedly how lucky I was but for me, luck had nothing to do with it. Sure, I wanted a better life and Japan did have a nice ring to it: The ring of money, to be exact, because to me, like to many others, any currency other than the Philippine peso sounded like a lot more.

Some people in my situation may have had the expectation that their lives would get better as soon as they finally met their long-lost father, or at least begin to make sense as though the last piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place, thus completing their identity. However, that is not what I think.

I think that even before you get to know your father and his culture, you should first get to know and love yourself, because after all, what good would the last piece of the puzzle be if you did not understand it to begin with.

Perhaps one of our reasons for living is the desire to understand the culture of others, but you have to make your own identity and when you do so, hopefully, what you will see is that it doesn’t really matter if you are part-Japanese or part-Filipino: You are more than the sum of your DNA. 

Explore Japan and experience its culture. Prep yourself and take pride in those life experiences you’ve had even though you didn’t have both parents. Consider meeting and bonding with your father as just a bonus, and do not expect or assume that everything will go right for it could very well not. 

If things don’t go according to your expectations, that’s unfortunate, but you’ll survive. Accept it and move on. I know you can. Don’t blame yourself or others. It’s high time for us Filipino-Japanese children to not be just a sob story. Gambarimasho!

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