Tag Archives: lifeskills

Passing HSK 3 in 1 month after 3 years of absence since the decision to study Chinese

English, 日本語, Español , Français , Português

你明白我在写什么吗？

Although Chinese has been my “to-learn language” for several years, I haven’t been able to improve much simply because my level of motivation was not that high.

Having known myself, I knew I was not going to take actions to establish my Chinese study habit quite soon, so I just found registration info on the exam called “HSK”, and before thinking too much, I signed up for it and paid, so there would be no way but to study for passing.

The deadline was in 1 month, which was descent timeline (as opposed to X years). In this entry, I am sharing my journey, including what HSK is, why I took and how I worked on to pass it in 1 month.

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Review 2020 to survive and thrive in 2021

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This year already finished? Time flies!

I am sure you heard or said this phrase recently. But the truth is, time does not fly. In fact, it is one of the few things, if not only, that is equally distributed to everyone, so we need to keep reminding ourselves of it.

How was your 2020?

You might come up with some events or images in your mind or challenge caused by COVID-19, and so do I. But if you reflect more deeply, I believe there are lots of learning and takeaways. In that sense, Year-end is a great moment to review what you did and who you are, to thrive and even survive in the next year. In this post, I will capture my examples with new method, hoping you might get something out of it.

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5 Big Lessons Learned by Living in West and East Africa

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Jambo! mambo! Waka waka! hakuna matata!

You might have heard one of the above. I was quite naive to have had a typical image of Africa before my arrival, and after having lived in the West and East Africa for 2+ years, I am confident to say this:

Africa is big and diverse!

Just like any learning, the more I knew about a tiny part of Africa, the more I realized that Africa is too big, diverse and complex to generalize, and I believe everyone has their own “My Africa”. So acknowledging that I can by no means speak for whole Africa, let me share some learnings from my Africa.

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Small dream came trueーTravelling to Senegal

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Small dream came true!

As I wrote in my previous entry (Mauritania 1ーLife turning point) coming to Africa was my small dream, and I heard about Senegal being famous for my favorite culture: music, dance, food, fashion, history, etc.

Although it was there for job purpose, I travelled one day before to get to know a bit of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. I would say I could achieve most of what tourists would do in this city, about which I would like to share in this entry.

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Mongolie 5ーCulture, Education and Thank you

Update: This post is the last and 5th part of Mongolian series. Please check part 1, part 2, part 3. and part 4

You can also see it in English, Español, Français, 日本語

In this, I would like to describe about the culture and nomadic life which are significant parts of Mongolia, as well as education which allowed me to stay in this country, and lastly finish with big thanks.

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Mongolia 2ーArrival

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Update: This post is the last and 5th part of Mongolian series. Please check part 1, part 3, part 4, and part 5

After deciding to leave Chile, it’s time to go to Mongolia!

First of all, I was going to go directly from Chile to Mongolia, but given that the destination is the other side of the planet, I made a decision to go to Japan first to prepare my self. Even Chingis Khaan managed to expand his empire with a lot of preparation (I think).

Before leaving Chile, I tried to meet as many close people as possible to eat out. At that time, I didn’t know that Chilean ingredients such as avocado (“Palta” in Chile), seafood and wine were that valuable, as I took them for granted. Especially since I was born and raised in Japan, I was used to seafood (for the next 3 years I really appreciated every opportunity to have sea food as Mongolia is landlocked country).

After all, we can appreciate the value of something when we lose it, be it health, salmon or Palta.

So I will briefly write about the path to arrive Mongolia.

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Learning from personal tripーChina and Thailand

It’s been a while since I had a personal trip last time without thinking about work at all, which taught me many things!

For 10 days, I had a family trip to China and Thailand. In this article, I would like to write about some general trip advice, recommended places, how to get there and how much as well as what lessons I learned.

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