Pan Asian Goes Global

*I will make another post regarding specific/objective information regarding Kumamoto Mosque, so stay tuned ^^ Kumamoto Mosque (Kumamoto Masjid) was a very special place for me while I lived in Kumamoto prefecture and still is. As soon as I got that email notifying me of my placement in Yatsushiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture, one of the very first things I did was google if there was a Mosque nearby. Fortunately, there was a Mosque in the capital, about 1.5 hours away from where I lived. I emailed the contact number given on the website, and received a reply from one of the *brothers that there was a *sisters' yahoo group (sisters and brothers is how we refer to our fellow Muslims ^^).  I was put in contact with an Indonesian sister.  She told me that there were a number of sisters at the Mosque, including a  Malaysian sister, and that they were looking forward to meeting me.  All of them lived close to the Masjid and Kumamoto University, where many of them went to...

This is the first time I'm spending Ramadan, and insyallah, Eid, in South East Asia/ a place where there are lots of other Muslims too ^^ I remember being the only Muslim kid in my class at elementary school, fasting, or the one whose mom made her a halal hot dog for hot dog day. So far, I've spent previous Ramadans and Eid in Vancouver, Korea, and Japan, alhamdulillah. Although it was sometimes difficult to find comfortable places to do my daily prayers in those locations , as Muslims are a minority there, there was usually a very strong bond among fellow Muslims. Mosques became like second-homes to me in all of those places - a place to comfortably do my prayers, meet fellow Muslims, find friends, and be a part of the local community. Especially during Ramadan, I would go to just one Mosque (more so in the case of Korea and Japan.. as the Mosque I went to was the only Mosque in the area), finding friendship and connection there. I miss the times I spent at Seoul Mosque and K...