Japanese Women in Canada Vol.17 Nao Hall

What do you like about Canada?

It’s a place where you can do what you want without worrying about what others think.Canada is a country of immigrants,so there are many ways to interpret normal.When I realized that what is right depends on the person, I no longer feel isolated.I think Japan is the best place to live comfortably and Canada is the best place to live in being yourself.

Also, I like having Vancouver’s nature in my daily life,especially with the ocean and mountains nearby.

How long have you been living canada?/What brought you here?

I first came here on a Visitor Visa in December 2015. I have lived in Canada for about 5 years in total. I have gone back to Japan,lived in Saskatchewan and then Vancouver.

The reason I came was I had always wanted to live abroad and my boyfriend at the time was in Saskatchewan, Canada.

He and I got married in March 2018 and he is now my dear partner.

What have you been doing since you came to live in Canada?

First, I attended a language school for three months on a Visitor Visa. After six months, I switched to a Working Holiday Visa and got a job as a ‘School Photographer’ in Saskatchewan. It felt like I was the only Japanese person there. It was hard for me to understand the conversation of native speakers.In Canada, there is a photo day at the local school, and they take a picture of every student in the school.Students can wear anything they want and can express themselves on their own way.That sense of freedom was a culture shock for me! 

I spent the first part of my time in Saskatchewan with my boyfriend,but there were not many Japanese people, which helped me to get to know Canadian culture and customs quickly.

After that, I went back to Japan with my boyfriend for a while.We got married and came back to Vancouver in August 2018.

After experiencing life in Canada and living back in Japan, I realized that I liked living in Canada better than living in Japan.  I realized that in Canadian culture there is generally a tolerance or acceptance of people that was comforting to me.

In 2019,I started working at Branches & Knots. I learned casual conversation with customers there. At this time, I was also working at a Japanese restaurant,but during the pandemic, the customers stopped coming.The owner, Naomi, decided to focus on the online business more, and I took on the job and rebuilt the website at home, took photos as a model, made DMs, and did all the editing. I also gained experience in promotion and marketing, and made new relationship with local Japanese people.My experience here gave me the opportunity to work freelance based on digital marketing.

What is the hardest thing you faced living in Canada? And what did you learn from it?

When I was working as a School Photographer in Saskatchewan,my co-workers were all native Canadians.At first, I was struggling to keep up in conversation. One-on-one conversations were fine, but in group conversations, I could not get involved.My English pronunciation was not understood.and I felt depressed about my at my English skills.

However, I was able to improve my English listening and speaking skills there in Saskatchewan. Now that I think about it, because there were no Japanese people andworking a job at a local company,I was able to learn about Canadian culture quickly.

What do you do?

I’m currently working as a freelancer based on digital marketing.This job gave me the freedom to live anywhere I want. That’s the lifestyle I want. 

“Digital marketing” is the process of building a structure on the Internet to sell products and acquire customers.For example, I work on behalf of social networking sites to create a structure that will attract attention, analyze the customer base in order to increase the number of followers, and then show and edit the structure.

When I was working at Branches & Knots, I had the opportunity to get to know a lot of talented Japanese creators. The products are very good quality and at an affordable price range.I felt like If they can change the way they are presented on social media just a little ,they could be more eye-catching and maybe sell more. I want to boost Japanese small businesses through digital marketing. I want to make the Japanese community more exciting.

Now I mainly work as a social networking agent for companies and planning and editing YouTube videos.

When I decided to make digital marketing my career, I wanted to have a way to showcase my portfolio of work, so I started Kawaii Vancouver in January 2020.It has been almost two years now.I’ve been working on how to present it in my own way, and it has gradually evolved into what it is now. Thanks to your help, I now have 3,000 followers.

I started this project with the hope that it would become a guidebook for people coming to Vancouver, but now I think it has even greater potential.I think it can also be used as a tool to support small businesses by facilititating collaboration with local businesses.

What do you like to do?

I like trying the food at various restaurants.Especially at the new restaurants.

I like to look for good things at Thrift stores. It’s like treasure hunting and I get excited.I also like to make things. I recently tried making pottery. It was so much fun!!

I want to continue to challenge myself to do everything I want to do. I also want to introduce things that I like, so kawaii Vancouver activities are a way of doing what I love and telling the story.

Is there anything you would like to do in the future?

I wanted to learn UX/UI Design, so I have started taking courses online. User experience (UX) design refers to the experience a user has when interacting with a product.User interface (UI) design refers to the aesthetic elements by which people interact with a product, such as buttons, icons, menu bars, typography, colors, and more.For example, UI is all the information that the user sees, such as website design and fonts. UX is what the user experiences and feels on that website.In order to improve UX, we need to improve the quality of UI.

I was interested in this UX/UIDesign because it focuses on designing with the user’s feelings in mind, with the satisfaction of the user as the main pillar of the service.And this is a skill that can be used not only in the virtual world like websites and apps, but also in stores and businesses in general.With these skills, I want to become a UX/UI designer who can create designs that are easier to understand and use from the user’s perspective.

In the future, I would like to use UX/UI Design for Kawaii Vancouver. I would also like to create a website that contains information that users are looking for.

What is your belief or motto?

‘Success is to keep trying until you succeed, failure is not to keep trying until you succeed.’

　by Konosuke Matsushita

Editor’s Comment

We met at Nelson the seagull, a cafe that Nao loves. It’s a relaxing cafe and I love it too. She is a woman, fully radiating a happy aura, and a person who really follows her heart.

Honest and straightforward. That’s my impression of Ms. Nao.

In this interview, I heard a lot of words I didn’t know. UX/UI design?? She explained them to me in an easy-to-understand way.Thank you,Nao.

I’m a follower of her previous work on the online site Branches & Knots and her own Kawaii Vancouver.I found it easy to browse and it captured my imagination.It appeals to the honest desires of human beings. I wondered why.I realized that the service was not self-serving to the creator.  It considers how users feel and what they want, and then adds her own sense of style to attract them.　How creative!

Seeing Kawaii Vancouver, there have been so many times when I thought, “I want to eat this” or “I want to visit this place! If you’ve ever visited her website,you know what I’m talking about.I’m sure it took a lot of effort and hard work to get to this point, but because of that she is now interested in UX/UI design and learning about it. If you start doing what you love, you will find what you need to do next. Just like what she has been doing.

In order to write this interview article, I did my own research on UX/UI design. The more I learn about it, the more I feel that it is a skill that can be used in any field.

I hope she will be able to connect with many people and plan more interesting projects. I’m looking forward to seeing how she makes the Japanese community in Vancouver more exciting and I hope Ogojo Canada will collaborate with her in the near future.

If you are not following Kawaii Vancouver yet, please check it out. You won’t regret it! You’ll find lots of fun and delicious information.