Hello!
My name is Chadwick Eason and I am one of the co-founders of NABEA.
I am a project manager and have spent the past five years working in East Asia. Uprooting my life and moving to Asia presented its own unique challenges but I am a part of NABEA today because I believe more young black students should do the same.
When people ask me how I began a career path so entangled with Asia, I always respond by saying that “Leaning into my interests yielded unexpected opportunities.”
For me those interests first manifested themselves in the form of watching Japanese cartoons as a child, but seeing as I did not have the means to take action at that age I seized the opportunity to study Japanese my first year at Harvard. I followed Freshman year and Sophomore year with back-to-back summers in Shanghai attending a renewable energy conference and interning with an enterprise software provider, respectively. At school I found myself increasingly enrolling in classes about East Asia and ultimately graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering with a secondary field of East Asian Studies.
I took a leap of faith and moved to South Korea immediately after graduating college to begin my career at Samsung Electronics. I worked cross-functionally and cross-culturally as a project manager creating digital marketing content and as a product planner researching security software. Additionally, I volunteered as a change management consultant at HLAB, an education non-profit organization based in Tokyo.
When I first traveled to Asia, it was admittedly difficult to adjust. I saw very few people who looked like me and struggled with my identity for an entire summer. I am open about this to say that living in a different country, particularly one less diverse than the US, has its challenges but because of the experience I learned more about myself and broadened my way of thinking. Of course it helped that I had a base level of interest, but if you find yourself reading this and thinking “I have the perseverance to lean into my interests,” why not take the leap yourself?
Sincerely,
Chadwick Eason
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This is inspiring Chad! Thanks for sharing and I’ll reach out to my black friends who are engaged in Asian culture to help your network grow.