Interview with Ms. L

"For me, family should feel warm and open. I don’t want my daughter growing up in a house where food on the table belongs only to one person, and everyone else has to ask before touching it. I want her to come home, see something she likes, and eat it without hesitation. That, to me, is what a real home feels like—warm and shared—not the cold, distant atmosphere I often sense in Japanese households.

When it comes to my daughter’s education, health comes first, then academics. She’s still young, but I hope she can grow into a caring, open-hearted girl—more like the Chinese side of me—rather than the more self-centered kind of personality I sometimes see here. Of course, I want her to study hard, but even if her grades aren’t perfect, what matters most is that she has a stable mind, a generous spirit, and, in the future, marries someone close to home, preferably another Chinese, so she always has a place to return when life gets hard. That sense of “娘家” support is very important to me, especially for a daughter.

My husband and I have even discussed whether we should one day send her back to China for education, perhaps even taking advantage of an overseas Chinese identity to get into a good school with less difficulty. It’s just an idea for now—she’s still in elementary school—but I want her to have options, whether in Japan or in China, depending on where our family’s future takes us.

Here in Japan, school feels very different. Children finish classes very early—sometimes as early as 2:30—and then head to the park. At 5:00 sharp, the neighborhood bell rings, and all the kids know it’s time to go home. Japanese children follow that bell faithfully. It’s a very structured way of raising children, but it also means one parent, usually the mother, often has to stay home to supervise. Among the Japanese mothers I know, most don’t work full-time outside the home.

As for academics, though, the pressure is enormous—especially if you want your child to enter a private school. I heard that if you aim for the best private elementary schools, preparation begins as early as preschool, with extra lessons, mock interviews, and even essay coaching. The system is brutally competitive. Some parents spend millions of yen just to get their child through the entrance process. And once you’re on the private school track, it becomes a straight pipeline: private elementary leads to private middle school, and from there to elite high schools and universities.

Unlike in China, where one big exam determines your future, Japan’s system requires applying to each university individually. Each application costs money, and you have to sit through multiple entrance exams and interviews. When I applied, every university charged about 20,000 yen just for the application, whether you got in or not. It’s stressful in a different way—less about one single decisive test, but more about endless preparation and expenses.

Of course, wealthy families play a different game altogether. Old-money families, the so-called “big four” in Japan, send their children abroad—to the U.S. or the U.K., to Oxford or Harvard. Even Tokyo University no longer ranks as high as China’s Tsinghua or Peking University, and families with the means always aim higher. It shows how deeply class divides run in Japan: top families aim for the world, while ordinary families feel the squeeze of the domestic system.

That’s the reality I see here. For my daughter, I want her to carry both worlds: the discipline of Japanese education but also the warmth, language, and cultural connection of her Chinese roots."