Soohyun Yang
Data Operations Manager
’14 George Washington University
Japanese and International Affairs
Favorite Word: 懐かしい
My professor asked if I could share my experience learning Japanese a couple months ago. I immediately accepted because I felt that learning Japanese shaped my life so significantly. However, when I sat down to organize my thoughts, I was at a standstill. Prior to writing a single word, I just marinated in my thoughts for a couple weeks, until I finally started writing my story on a train going from Amsterdam to Leiden in the Netherlands. People have asked me why I decided to study Japanese countless times, and I would always jokingly tell the actual story behind how I ended up in my first Japanese class. It was very simple. I knew I wanted to learn another Asian language aside from Korean, which I already knew, and Japanese was right above Korean in the course list, so chose it on a whim. To be honest, I knew very little about Japan. I watched well-known Japanese shows as a child, like Sailormoon and Pokemon, no different from many other American children. I had never even met a Japanese person until college. I digress, but after much thought, I realized the trigger to learning Japanese was my grandfather.
When I was young, my grandfather would tell me stories about when he lived in Japan. I don’t remember them well, but it was one of the few topics we bonded over. As the years went by, my grandfather lost a lot of his vision and hearing. Most of my family members became quite distant from him, and most certainly all his grandchildren. After 7 years of being unable to articulate why I decided to study Japanese, I’m realizing that my subconscious decision was made to stay connected with my grandfather. When I first started learning Japanese, I was terrible. I remember getting a D- on my first speaking test, and I was completely crushed. You can probably imagine that this meant that there was very little I could say to my grandfather. But each year I got a little better, and I started having more interesting conversations him. Unfortunately, as my Japanese improved, his vision and hearing got worse. He couldn’t recognize my face or hear my voice at a normal volume. But that was okay. Every time I visited, I would announce my arrival, “Grandpa! Soo’s here!” and I would sit really close to him so that he could see my face a little better. We would hold hands and talk for hours. It took me a long time to write the previous paragraph because I couldn’t stop crying reminiscing about him. I guess I should mention that my grandfather passed away last year. Learning Japanese, which was simply meant to foster a stronger relationship with my grandfather brought me so much more than what I expected. Japanese has never been one language that allows me to connect with just Japanese people.
Japanese taught me how to connect with anyone in the most genuine way possible. Japanese taught me humility and how to put myself in the shoes of others. Japanese taught me confidence by forcing me to power through my words, correct grammar or not, to get my point across. Japanese taught me to be resilient. I did my entire job hunt in Japanese at the Boston Career Forum, twice. And it was seriously painful. Japanese taught me hard work because learning Japanese is freaking hard. Japanese brought me my most cherished memories, like making pottery on a rainy night with a professor in some remote part of Aichi prefecture. Japanese allowed me to explore my creativity by giving me the chance to introduce different cities in Japan in the form of YouTube videos. Japanese brought so much excitement and love into my life. And for those of you who believe that majoring in Japanese will limit your career options, I cannot disagree more. What limits you is never what you are learning, but how you frame your learning. I work at a geospatial analytics startup in Silicon Valley called Orbital Insight as the Data Operations Manager, and I can proudly and honestly say that learning Japanese has greatly influenced my career.
When we launched our first geospatial visualization tool, we didn’t have anyone to create a demo video for the company. Simultaneously, we were gaining an incredible amount of interest in Japan. Initially, our Director of Sales asked if I could make a video for his sales trip to Japan, and then a few days later our Head of Data Science asked if I could make the video in Japanese. Thankfully, I spent two months running around Japan making YouTube videos, and although my Japanese was far from fluent, I was up for the challenge. I spent a month burning through nights to perfect the script, edit the clips, record and re-record the script to make sure that my Japanese was easy to understand. This reminded me of when I spent months preparing for the Japanese Boston Career Forum and when I pulled an all-nighter editing my video clips on an 8-hour overnight bus ride from Yokohama to Osaka. Meanwhile, I had two other job titles, Data Operations Engineer and (Satellite) Imagery Program Manager. By the end, I was completely drained, but the videos quickly gained traction. I got emails from my Chief Business Officer, VP of Sales, VP of Product Engineering, and others asking if I could make more videos. My video was presented in front of several well-known Japanese companies. It only took one demo video in Japanese to open so many doors. I was invited to have dinner with ITOCHU, now one of our investors. I was promoted to become the manager of my team, which allows me to humbly serve 6 incredible team members as the youngest manager in the company. And the executive team has already discussed the opportunities that will be available to me in Japan once we open our office in Tokyo.
So, for those of you who are concerned about your career or your future, don’t. Instead, spend each day learning how to connect with others in the most genuine way. Be humble and hardworking. Be confident and resilient. And have fun. Make a YouTube video or a ceramic bowl in some remote part of the world. For me, learning Japanese was the vehicle that allowed me to explore life. And if you find that something is tugging at your heart strings to learn Japanese, I encourage you to frame your learning in this way. I wish my grandfather were here to hear my story as he was the trigger to the many incredible events in my life. But I also have so many others to thank for fueling my vehicle. I want to thank all my wonderful professors at George Washington University, as well as Nanzan University.