It was almost 10 years ago, year 2010.
I was a basic, normal Taiwanese student, sitting with other classmates in the classroom.
Grade 8, then one more year of middle school. At that time, my future education life was already planned:
Graduate from middle school, stay here for 3 more years of high school life.
A famous Chinese quote goes, “Plans are unable to keep up with sudden changes.” This exact scenario happened to me that year. Due to family reasons, I would be leaving my home to settle in Tokyo, Japan. This meant that I had to readapt to a new environment.
I still remember clearly when I stood with one of my best friends in the hallway. She asked me: “What do you want your future to be?”
I looked at the cloudy sky and responded calmly:
“I don’t know. Probably just live on day by day in this school and hopefully get into a good university.”
Busy, normal Taipei street view (Image source)
After the decision was made for me to leave for Japan, my classmates and school were informed of this. My good friends and classmates started to call me a traitor and even some ridiculous nicknames such as Japanese ghost.
I had always been a shy and diffident Taiwanese girl who was only seeking a mediocre peacefulness in life, but how can they just call me by those hurtful nicknames? I didn’t make this decision on my own because I wanted to leave my home for something new; I didn’t betray any of you.
Besides this, something interesting happened to me during the very same year. When our class was taking an English pop quiz, a few annoying boys in our class called my best friend ‘ugly girl’ and I couldn’t stand it; I furiously finished the quiz. At that time, there was no way that I would go and fight those dumb classmates. Afterwards, the same number of boys redirected their target to me. They start to call my name frequently during recess and called me a beautiful girl.
I clearly knew that they were making fun of my appearance.
It was perhaps last year – I enjoy reminiscing with my old Facebook posts through reading the memories section on Facebook, and one day I encountered a post by my best guy friend back in middle school. His post was about how I just suddenly decided to leave my home for education in Japan, and his other post included a hurtful nickname about me betraying my classmates.
Do I feel sad after reading this memory post? To be honest I really don’t know. 2010 – the year of transition – was a year that mixed emotions lingered within me; I was frustrated as the main bully target for an entire semester. Yet, I couldn’t really do anything about it.
As an individual who has been plagued with bullying experiences in middle school and high school, I am not revealing these experiences to gain sympathy from the readers.
I guess the important lesson that I’ve learned is the fact that I have actually gained self-confidence through these years instead of letting those unpleasant experiences engulf my self esteem.