Expatriate Life in Dublin
One year ago, Rieko Yamashita, former CCE Japan Chairperson, left Tokyo to pursue a graduate degree in Dublin. Following are excerpts from a letter to members of CCE Japan in which Rieko writes of her experiences as an expatriate in Ireland.
This April I was so busy with my studies at university that I stopped dancing - getting a little out of shape as a result. At that time I was writing my thesis on radical feminism, and about how to solve the problem of discrimination against women in the 20th century. I am now taking two courses on feminism. I have always had a lot of interest in this topic. However up until this time I was a little scared to explore it fully. But the teacher taught us and listened to us, the students, so carefully, that it really encouraged me to take part in class.
The teacher introduced me to many new ideas: how women are suppressed by the patriarchy, and how so many different kinds of discrimination - sexual, religious, racial - grew out of the time when human beings started controlling and subduing nature.
Of course we also talked about the problem in the North, where religious discrimination is the main issue. But, actually, I believe that deep down, problems start when people try to make groups - including some people and excluding others. Even single people sometimes feel discriminated against by those who are married.
Once, a Swiss woman I know named Roseanna was asked by some Irish people if she’d found a nice Irish boyfriend yet. She used to answer back: “What?! Are Irish men so great that foreign women would want to go out with them?” and then they all started laughing. I myself have also been asked the same question. I always find it difficult to answer. I don’t think people in Japan would ever ask foreigners that question.
Even though so many people here think that foreign women come to Ireland just to find boyfriends, don’t you think that it’s more important that we should think about other issues - like human rights? For example, there was a march here in Dublin, on O’Connell Street, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Only a very small group - about 30 people - showed up for the march. But later, when we all returned to O’Connell Street, many more people had arrived, for Gerry Adams was speaking. This day was also the 80th anniversary of the Easter Uprising! At that point there were many people shouting: “The British government is senseless. Boycott Irish elections!”
But this all made me feel sad. The people in the North, the Catholics and the Protestants, they live in the same place but they have totally different thinking. In my heart I have some deep sorrow. I started thinking:
When will the real deep human, heart-to-heart understanding come? If you don’t understand that all human beings are the same we will never achieve a real way of thinking. If we keep making groups like this, this kind of system, and discrimination, will never end.
