I've always fantasized about living in Japan. But after nearly three years of living here as a Black woman, I'm ready to move back to the US.

04.09.2023 - 11:55 / insider.com

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Renee Marant, a 21-year-old college student attending Temple University at the school's Japan campus. The essay has been edited for length and clarity.

Me and Japan go way back. Since I was about 9, I was super interested in anime. When I was younger, I did a lot of storytelling and was also an artist, and seeing the two come alive in anime was so interesting to me.

Through anime, I picked up on aspects of Japanese culture, noticing how people take their shoes off when they go to school and how they clean up their classrooms. I could tell it was a completely different culture from Philadelphia, where I grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood.

It became a sort of gateway. I got deep into the history and the architecture of Japan. In middle school, I started teaching myself Japanese, saving up my allowance to buy workbooks from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

In high school, I got the opportunity to come abroad for a year. I experienced the traditional high school experience in Japan, which made me want to come back for college, where I am now.

It has always been my dream to live in Japan, and I'm so glad I did it. But instances of racism and weak job prospects made me decide to move back to America.

When I came to Japan for my high school sophomore year abroad in 2017, I realized I'd definitely over-romanticized it. I had this idea from how it was depicted in the media. The curriculum was very strict and the school had a very traditional environment.

I thought that my Japanese would hold up, but even after five years of studying, I wasn't able to communicate very effectively. I joined the volleyball team, and that's where I made my friends, but for the most part, I spent a lot of time alone.

I also had this expectation that people were going to seek me out, and, being in such a different environment, I didn't have the courage to really put myself out there. There was just one other foreigner at the school with me: At first, we decided we weren't going to talk to each other, because we wanted to immerse ourselves in the culture. But we ended up hanging out all the time a few months later, because she was going through the same thing.

I really enjoyed living with three different host families. Living under a family's roof was very comforting to me, and we'd go out to eat and hang out, even if there was still a bit of a language barrier.

Even though the experience wasn't what I'd initially imagined, I discovered things that I loved about living in Japan, and returned for college a year and a half ago in April 2022. I'm now studying economics at the Japanese campus of Temple University.

In Philly, I always had to look behind me to see if I'm safe.