Public eye #31

Daniel Silva, IT social venture employee

Who is the picture on your t-shirt of?
DS: I don’t know. I wonder who it is. It’s a t-shirt I bought at Uniqlo. [Laughs]

Do you live in Tokyo?
DS: Until I graduated this summer, I was a student in Japan. I wanted to work in Japan, and I looked for a job here, but I thought while I’m in my 20s, I want to experience a lot of different things, so I’ve been living in Singapore since I graduated. I work at an IT company run by two people from Malaysia and India who are both a similar age to me.

Working in Singapore, did you get homesick and end up coming back to Tokyo?
DS: [Laughs] When I’m in Singapore I do really want to come back to Tokyo. I came back to Tokyo this time to fix up things with the contract on my place and my visa. I’ll go back to Singapore in October.

When did you first come to Tokyo?
DS: In October 2005. The first time was as an exchange student from a university in Portugal to the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, but I loved Japan so much that I wanted to live here for a longer time and I quit the university in Portugal and enrolled at ICU.

What is it that drew you to Japan?
DS: I think it was the spirit of things here. It’s difficult to explain, but I started to be interested in Japan when I was 17 or 18. My first exposure to it was from old Japanese films and 80s anime. Like Kurosawa’s films, and ‘Akira’.

Was ‘Akira’ dubbed into Portuguese?
DS: ‘Akira’ wasn’t, but other ones like ‘Captain Tsubasa’ and ‘Saint Seiya’ were translated into Portuguese and were really popular. But I didn’t know they were Japanese – I always thought they were American. So I think that when I really started to be interested in Japan was when I studied Japanese at university and became friends with the teacher, who suggested that I study here.

There are a lot of things in Japan which have come from Portugal, like castella cakes and kompeito sweets, aren’t there?
DS: But in history classes in Portugal we don’t really study about Japan at all, so it feels very far away. When I told my parents, ‘I’m going to Japan,’ they supported me, but my mother knew almost nothing about Japan.

But when you actually got here, how was it?
DS: Really great. At the start I lived with other students from abroad in a dormitory near Tabata Station, and there were about 200 of us. That was when I was able to meet people from Southeast Asian countries – like Laos, Indonesia and Singapore – for the first time. When I was in Portugal I’d never heard anything about a country called Laos, so it was a really interesting experience.

Have any of your friends or family from Portugal come to visit?
DS: My mother came in June. She’s not so fond of big cities so we went to places like Nikko, Kyoto and Nara. She really likes natural scenery so we also went to Mt Takao. I think places like Akihabara are quite interesting when friends who are a similar age come to Tokyo. Also, I used to work part-time at the Shibuya Apple Store, so I used to show it to friends and say ‘I’m working here!’

So you worked in Shibuya? Was there any restaurant you really liked around there?
DS: I used to go to the Standing Sushi Bar a lot. It’s right by Shibuya Station. Japanese food is so delicious. I really love it.

More from Daniel

‘The most delicious dessert in the world is one I ate in Thailand: Khai Nieow Ma-Muang. It’s made by putting mango on top of sticky rice and covering it all with coconut milk. In Japan I like anything with matcha (powdered green tea) in it. I love matcha.’

‘I’m not very good at football, but in Portugal it’s difficult to not see it. Everywhere you go people play it, and any restaurant you go to is showing a broadcast or video of it!’

‘The tattoo on my wrist is my ‘on’ button. When I’m feeling a little low, I push it.’ [Laughs]