A Cuban woman at full speed in Tokyo

August 11, 2021

Not defining yourself by your degree means keeping doors open. Anayanci Daudinot Valdés, a young 29-year-old Cuban biologist, has this clear and has been making her way in Tokyo for quite some time based on initiative, effort, and a strong desire to succeed.

She teaches Spanish, English, and salsa to several Japanese people, and her dream is to establish an academy where the union between Japan and Cuba becomes the core of all its content. But this venture doesn't come from a whim; it stems from her experience and desire to be an excellent professional.

Although her academic background is rooted in biology, this young woman from Old Havana has been sharing her English knowledge since her teenage years, has been giving Spanish lessons to non-Spanish speakers since 2013, and began teaching salsa ten years ago. Nevertheless, arriving in the hustle and bustle of a mega city like Tokyo didn't intimidate her, and first things first, she sought several ways to immerse herself in the local language.

From a Sunday Japanese school at a Catholic church, mixed with exchange classes with a friend, to a government school to reach business level, Anayanci combined her studies with multiple jobs. She worked on the Yokohama cruises, in a restaurant, and on the Hello Sensei website where she received her first student offers. "I kept working and doing everything because from the moment I arrived here it's been full speed, because I had to learn more about the culture and I had to learn to manage on my own, because when you arrive here it's like getting on the train of the future."

One of the most famous language schools in Japan, ECC (English Community Communication), hired her as a Spanish teacher, and she still works today in a daycare teaching English and on Saturdays she teaches her native language to high school students. "I do all this because I want to have my own academy and I need to have experience. I've already taught all ages, from children 1 to 6 years old, teenagers, university adults between thirty and forty years old, and even elderly adults. In fact, my oldest Spanish student is 75 years old and in my salsa classes I have an 80-year-old woman who dances very well," she says.

In addition to this, she dedicates her savings to her academy's funds and, while there are other Spanish teachers in Tokyo, she has identified that the small number of Cubans (about 500 in the country and around 200 in the capital) is an advantage for her business, as well as the attraction many Japanese people feel for our culture.

"My biggest dream right now is to create my academy, which would be like a cultural center with languages, dance, and my husband's work, who is a music teacher, so it would be like a kind of café where concerts could be held." Finally having a name and a space for the company would allow her to "open a door for those people who still don't know about Cuba, about Latin America."

Anayanci's philosophy is also based on not giving up on any dream and, in fact, returning to biology still appears as an option for her, perhaps through a link between this, anthropology, and the ties between Cuba and Japan because, as she mentions, in Tokyo they also need that characteristic joy of the Cuban people.