MATEJ CUFER, SLOVENIAN / 33 YEARS OLD/ DIRECTOR MANAGER, GORENJE UK / IN LONDON SINCE 2005

I lived in Paris for 13 years before moving to London, so I’m quite used to life abroad.
I have been living in London for three years now. I get it as a city which offers you several different stories and it depends on you which one are you going to choose.
My work in London is very dynamic and that’s what I really like.
When I start to think about disadvantages of living in this country, the first thing that comes to my mind is very short days in wintertime.
What I miss very much from Slovenia is good food, my mother and friends that I can’t meet every day. I think that two hour flight and very cheap tickets to Slovenia make it possible for everyone to fly home quite often and so, if I felt very homesick then it was my own fault for not taking advantage of this easy trip.
I think everyone changes while living abroad and along with that his identity. When speaking in a foreign language, I notice the difference of transferring thoughts from one culture to another. A new environment has influence on our personal changes as well. One is definitely different even though one does not know how different and in what way…because he is here and not there to be able to compare.
England is a very open country. I do not have future plans. When you are here, you are here, when you are not, you are not.

KEIKO MIYAZAKI VAHCIC, JAPANESE / 29 YEARS OLD / ARTIST, PAINTER / IN SLOVENIA SINCE 2006

I came to Slovenia to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design. During that time I met my husband. I feel that Slovenians are very kind, some of them a bit shy but once they know you it is different. They like to talk about wine and drinking. I don’t think that they are very different from the Japanese.
Perhaps the difference is that they like to moan. For example, in Japan one tries to find a solution while in Slovenia moaning is part of everyday conversation.
It is funny that Slovenes use the word ‘of course’ so often. While at the beginning this left me confused and I could not understand it, now I have got used to it.
Advantages of living in Slovenia: it is very easy to travel to other countries, even by car. In Japan it has to always be by plane.