Global Experience

During a working holiday year in Japan, I stepped fully outside my professional field and into two roles that depended entirely on real-time, cross-cultural communication — with no shared native language to fall back on.

• Tour Guide: Guided Korean-speaking travelers through the Hokkaido area, communicating with local drivers, restaurant staff, and tour operators in Japanese to coordinate logistics smoothly, while adapting commentary on the spot based on each group's interests and reactions

• Korean Language Tutor: Taught Korean to 15 Japanese learners across one-on-one and paired lessons, learning to explain the same concept in different ways depending on each learner's native-language logic, age, and comprehension style

• Navigated daily life, work, and client relationships entirely in Japanese, building fluency not just in vocabulary but in reading context, tone, and unspoken expectations across cultures

This year sharpened a skill I now rely on across every country I work in: adjusting how I communicate — not just what language I use — based on who I'm speaking with.