Hi there! Yi Thying here, nice to meet you :) ☆I'm a newly minted designer in Goalist, officially joined the friendly team from 22 April this year. It's my first job in Japan (a dream come true (*^^*)☆彡) & there's still a lot to learn, so I'll definitely need help with being shown around the ropes here. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu~! (←← shall skip translating this one (≧▽≦)) Let's start!

Personal Background
My name is Yi Thying (yee thee-ing), from Penang, Malaysia. I'm incredibly fortunate to have been born into a multicultural and multilingual country, where I naturally enjoyed getting to know different languages and cultures. At the moment, I'm able to converse in 6 languages, namely English, Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and now Japanese. I'd consider English as my mother tongue, while the rest are just around daily conversational level for now ^^;

As much as I enjoy music, arts, crafts and all things pretty since young, in my secondary school years I opted to enter the science stream instead of the arts. 

My reason being that the Malaysian education system at the time had only economics and political related studies available in the arts stream. Being a person whose math skill is questionable and who doesn’t favour conflicts much, I decided to go for sciences instead (..not that there's no math or formulas to memorize in sciences..). Moreover, throughout my time growing up, people around me often say “Sciences will open up more options in future, more to fall back to,” hence, I decided on that. Was the knowledge of much use thereafter? ….a little, I guess?

Though during my free time, I often found myself crafting gifts for family members, close friends and also as presents for artists I liked. The joy of thinking up ideas, hunting for materials and handcrafting gifts from the heart to express appreciation and feelings for others, was always very fulfilling.

Knowing academics wasn’t really my thing, when it came the time to choose my path for tertiary education, I decided to go with arts and design upon hearing my mum say “Since you have such patience and interest in making things, why don’t you try the arts field?”, it seemed to make more sense :)

With that, I moved to Singapore to further my studies at LASALLE College of the Arts, majoring in Design Communication. Studying at an arts college, the grading system was different; project based, with more focus on the daily progress, rather than the exam based system that I was used to growing up. While studying abroad and in the arts had its fair share of ups and downs, it was a really fun experience nonetheless.

Upon graduation, I continued staying on in Singapore, working as a graphic designer at a corporate gift company and an advertising firm, as well as freelance designing for events. All that added up to around 9 years of stay in Singapore, which naturally became a second home to me.

After having experienced living in Singapore for close to a decade, I made the move to return to Penang, where I worked as a designer at a local attraction park, assisting them with in-house design support following their rebranding and towards their grand opening at the time. It was a valuable opportunity to give back to the community back home.

Why Japan?
“So, why Japan?”
..often pops up in conversations. It does make for a good ice-breaker :)

To be honest, there are too many to list, but I'm more than happy to share as we go along.

Perhaps my first-hand encounter with Japan itself were the family trips as a teenager. I’d always heard about the high level importance good manners is given, the kindness of its people, the well-thought out and detailed way of approach to everything, the impeccable hospitality, the scenic beauty…and having seen them with my very own eyes and felt them at heart, Japan never disappoints, and I fell in love with it since then ♥

Little did I know that wasn’t going to be the only reason. 

One summer vacation, while watching a music tv programme called “Music Station”, a group performed and their (pretty silly, very genki) antics caught my attention, and left a strong impression, leading me to look them up and followed their music and activities since then, That group was “V6” from Johnny’s Entertainment. From then on, it was through their music and variety shows where I slowly picked up Japanese vocabulary while being entertained.✧・ﾟ

It has always been a wish of mine to take up Japanese language lessons, however life abroad as a student in Singapore followed by the busy life of a designer, allowed for only a small budget and even less time. I fortunately did however start fulfilling this wish when I went back to Penang and found Penang Japanese Language Society (PJLS), where it was much more affordable and the teacher I learnt from was very passionate with his lessons. I always looked forward to class and enjoyed every moment there.

There were many reasons that brought me to Japan. One of them was a wishful thinking I used to have in my days at advertising. In Singapore, influence of Japanese culture was pretty widespread and I often found myself strolling into Kinokuniya Bookstores (shoutout to Ngee Ann City and Liang Court branches ;) ✧・ﾟ), picking up Japanese graphic design books, browsing and end up breaking the wallet to purchase them. It was great investment, and as I often browsed them for ideas at work, I had thoughts of “Wouldn’t it be nice if someday I could be there to experience life like a local, and be surrounded by a good environment with good design to pick inspiration from and be able to share the experiences gained thus far”. Long story short, with that thought in mind, I started looking for ways to fulfill my dream to Japan. 

As chance would have it, I was fortunate to come to Tokyo in April 2017 and started my life in Japan as a student studying Japanese language. And early March this year, I graduated my study of 2 years, moved to a new place in Japan for the first time, found a job in Goalist, and with that, started a new chapter of life in Japan. It’s like having a dream come true, and more than anything, my heart is filled with much gratitude :) ✿

Voyager
While referencing fellow design team members’ blog posts, I like how uniquely they integrate things they like into their nicknames. Still learning to be creative in this department of nicknaming, I figured “voyager” might fit the bill for the moment. 

While rather timid in person, I actually do enjoy being quite an explorer myself. Since young, I have been incredibly blessed with opportunities to travel to different places. Around the tender age of 4-5 years old, my dad’s work had allowed for us to stay in the United States for a short period time. In my secondary school years, we would go on family vacations which opened my eyes to how much the world has to offer. Thereafter, I had the chance to further my tertiary studies in Singapore, which led me to continue staying there for close to a decade, making it my second home, where I felt I grew so much as a person.

Being abroad for close to half my lifetime now, I developed a love for personal freedom and knack for adventures. Crazy as it is, this character of mine has led me to muster up the courage to realize my dreams of coming to Japan.

Penang ✈ Singapore ✈ Penang ✈ Tokyo

It definitely has been quite a life adventure, hence “voyager”. And I can’t wait to experience this journey as this new chapter unfolds ☆彡 

PS: by the way, “Voyager” is also a song title by V6 ;) ♪



Thank you for following me through this LOOOONGGG introductory post (^^;) Looking forward to posting and sharing various interesting finds here on note! Trying to use this platform to practice both Japanese and English here, so please bear with me as we go along! Thanks for reading ✿ See ya in the next post! (*^^*)✧・ﾟ

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Header credits:
Photo by Rakicevic Nenad from Pexels