The project is a series of short biographies on persons of multiple culture, religion, or class.  I am also working on 2 posts as a guest blogger for 2 different sites.  My juices are flowing, I can feel it. 

And I have Twitter to thank for that.  There appear to be debates on the web, over the new “listing” function Twitter added for everyone.  Some people seem to be on the fence about it, some people seem to be rejecting the idea because of the notion that it may make some tweeters feel excluded if left not listed.  I must say for my case it’s been a positive addition to be able to categorize and organize my Twitter friends.  I myself am not offended if I’m not on the list of people I occasionally engage with.  Because it doesn’t mean I don’t matter.  Just because I haven’t listed someone doesn’t mean the person doesn’t matter or is not a great tweeter. It just so happens that I haven’t gotten a chance to get to know everyone yet.  Besides, who am I to judge?

In fact, the listing function is allowing me to stay organized and place different focuses on each group if I need to, so that I have lower chance of missing something relevant to my purpose, or get disorganized in my process of reading through a large number of tweets.  I know Twitter is not perfect. But it’s pretty darn amazing!  Twitter is one of the crucial catalyst for bringing my vision to reality.  

Anyway, I hope you will keep dropping by to check what’s coming up.

Jokes aside, it is obvious that Twitter is very valuable because you get: breaking news faster than any other media, a lot of good information, educational materials, and great entertainment.  What’s more, you get to meet many people of special qualities who live around the world that you wouldn’t normally meet without Twitter.   

I’ve met many wonderful people myself.  Caring, genuine, talented, knowledgeable, accomplished, ambitious, loving, engaging, passionate, curious, enthusiastic, supportive, friendly, warm etc. etc.  I truly appreciate everyone who touched me in his/her unique way.  You know I am talking about you if you are one of them. Eventually I would like to write about all of them to let the world know how they enhanced my life.  

And today, I would like to begin by introducing Ryan Taylor.

I found Ryan through a tweet that recommended one of his posts on his blog Caught*Red-Handed.  The blog focuses on Japan and it’s culture, and he describes himself as an “obsessive, compulsive, and fanatical Yorkshire lad, longing for life in the Land of the Rising Sun. “

His energy and the passion for Japan shines through like a strong beam of light on his blog.  He recently launched a new project to have guest bloggers on board, and I had a pleasure of being a part of it.

He is probably the youngest among all tweeters I connected outside of tweeting.  Through our private communications, I began to notice his consistent politeness and caring demeanor.  His politeness is not the stiff and proper kind that can feel superficial.  It feels to me like it’s his personal style coming through.  It is also possible that I am misinterpreting a cultural character of his homeland I’m not familiar with.  Even if that’s the case, there is something about Ryan’s engaging personality that breaks any barrier, even the generational barrier between us.

Well, I don’t want to embarrass the young lad by going on like this.  So let me move on to the original reason why I wanted to talk about him.

Ryan is one of many people who came into my life at the right time. 

I’m an expat living in the US, and it’s been 30 years since I left my birth country Japan as a teenager.  Obviously there was a reason for me to leave, and as some people know very well through my blog An Ocean Away, it wasn’t a positive one.  I am now just beginning to deal with the very reason for leaving, head on.  And in this process, being exposed to what Ryan sees through his fresh eyes with enthusiasm, is aiding me to see Japan in a different light, after all these years of holding a personal, negative impression about Japan in my subconscious. 

Through Ryan’s blog, I learned that there are many young people in the world who are learning about Japan for one reason or another.  I am now exposed to their points of view as well.  I also saw a mirror image of myself in Ryan as I read on his blog page that said he never feels at home in UK, which is his birthplace.  The way he feels about his own country is how I’d felt about Japan for a long time.  And as I was able to see positive qualities in the new culture I was exposed to in the US, Ryan seems to be able to take something out of Japanese culture that fills his heart, something he hasn’t found – well at least not yet so far anyway – in UK.   I don’t mean to imply that his experiences in UK mirrors mine in Japan.  I am only expressing my curiosity on how cultural exposure takes place and affect people in the way they form, in this world of ours.

I am certain there are more people like Ryan around the world.  The point is that he is the one who happened to be there, sharing his enthusiasm about my home country with the world.  His enthusiasm allowed me to be excited about Japan the way I haven’t for a long time.  And I am very thankful.

Thank you Ryan, much gratitude to you and I wish you the best.  I hope you get to keep on doing what you are doing until your heart’s content.

Currently this site is open under construction. I am planning to add a forum where people can discuss about this world of ours. As soon as it’s fully operational, it will be announced. Meanwhile, please check back from time to time to see what’s up.

If you have any suggestions about how you would like this forum to be, or if you would like to have other contents, please feel free to leave a comment on this post.  Just know as you post your comments, that I reserve the right to delete or not publish comments that contains words of explicit or derogatory nature.

I am excited and I hope you are too.