How students in Japan strive to escape the international school bubble

With sky-high tuition and a scholastic life spent outside of the culture and teachings of the public school system, it can be easy for students at international schools to get stuck in a bubble.

Some might find it hard to integrate with the broader community even after graduation and as they transition into adult life. But many young students are looking to ensure that’s not the case for them. Take 18-year old Nina Harmer, a graduate of Yokohama International School, who says she was definitely in an international school bubble during much of her teens. With both Japanese and Danish heritage, Harmer says she found it difficult to integrate into Japanese society.

“I tried very hard, but I could never have real conversations with Japanese girls my age. Their interests — fashion, music, or future dreams — were so different from mine that I couldn’t build a meaningful relationship with them,” she said.

Instead of trying to force it, Harmer looked for ways to return to Japan what she had received.

Nina Harmer, 18, says she found it difficult to integrate into Japanese society while attending Yokohama International School. | JOHAN BROOKS

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she helped an organization distribute food to homeless people who slept along riverbanks in Yokohama.

Seeing such levels of poverty in her hometown, Harmer decided to do more research about people experiencing financial hardships.

“I thought Yokohama was so rich, I couldn’t believe it when I found there were single mothers living on ¥200 ($1.30) a day, unable to give enough food to their children,” she said.

Harmer met an 86-year old Japanese woman who ran a local kodomo shokudō (children’s cafe), a grassroots social movement providing free or low-cost nutritious meals to children from low-income backgrounds, as well as those who usually eat alone because their parents work late.

With her friends, Harmer started a volunteer group to regularly cook at the cafe and play with the kids.

Even though Harmer, who is now studying life sciences at the University of Toronto, could not fully leave the international school bubble, she is grateful for the opportunity she was given by the school, where she joined badminton and basketball tournaments in South Korea and Taiwan.

Even though Harmer, who is now studying life sciences at the University of Toronto, could not fully leave the international school bubble, she is grateful for the opportunity to study at Yokohama International School. | JOHAN BROOKS

“The school gave us insights about different cultures in the world, including Japan. In the future, I hope to be able to have deep, meaningful conversations also with Japanese people,” she said.

Oisin Burke, 18, who is Irish and French, tried not to get stuck in the international school bubble at Lycee Francais International de Tokyo.

Born in Dublin, he moved seven times across various countries in Europe, changing schools six times, sometimes after as little as nine months.

Tokyo has been home for the past four years and he’s now enrolled in a four-year social studies program at Waseda University.

“Most of my friends go to a French or Canadian francophone university. But because of so much moving all my life, I want the comfort of finally being in one place where I no longer have to rebuild.”

Unlike his school friends, who only hung out with one another, Burke joined various groups in Japan.

Oisin Burke, 18, who is Irish and French, tried not to get stuck in the international school bubble at Lycee Francais International de Tokyo, joining various groups outside of school in order to diversify his social circle. | YUMI WIJERS-HASEGAWA

He joined a running group at Yoyogi Park and a club that plays classic board and card games in Setagaya Ward. He also took on crochet stitching, initially at his high school club, then later at the Permanent General Mission of Palestine in Tokyo to raise funds and awareness for the territory’s plight.

“I met many people who were completely different from my school friends. They opened up my world,” he said.

Burke is constantly on the look out for experiences that are authentic to Japan.

With his school, he visited a nearby public high school and experienced a typical Japanese school festival. In his free time, he visits rural areas to try to meet Japanese people living in the countryside.

“When I go to these places, I feel, ‘This is Japan.’ It’s Japan that’s not made for tourists,” he said.

“After pursuing theoretical and practical study cases at university, my dream job is social work, finding solutions for different communities. Understanding about countries like Japan helps shape my thoughts.”

Belem Correia, 18, from the same school as Burke, believes that “a piece of her is in every country she has lived in.”

The French Portuguese has moved seven times since the age of 3, and has lived in France, Brazil, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan and Japan. She is now enrolled at SKEMA Business School in Lille, France.

To avoid the bubble, Correia tried to learn the language of each country she lived in.

Belem Correia, who has moved seven times since the age of 3, believes that “a piece of her is in every country she has lived in.” | YUMI WIJERS-HASEGAWA

Arabic was compulsory for expatriate kids in Oman and Dubai. She learned Chinese in Taiwan and is fluent enough to navigate medical appointments, for example.

Like Harmer, Correia also took on projects to help local communities.

In Oman and Dubai, she helped collect basic essentials such as food and clothing and redistributed them to lower-income households. In Taiwan, Correia and a group of her friends launched a project to teach English to poor children in the southern part of the island, traveling seven hours one way to do so.

More recently in Yokohama, she helped her father’s company organize beach clean-up events in partnership with a Japanese orphanage.

“These efforts helped me integrate in real communities of the countries I lived in,” she said. “Using Chinese to teach English to Taiwanese kids was especially challenging, as I was then only 14. I was thinking, ’How far can I get?’”

“In Brazil I started walking and speaking. In Oman I started to make friends. In Taiwan and Japan I grew up and opened up as a person. There is not one place which is my home. Each country has a part of me.”

Amane Morohashi, a graduate of Saint Maur in Yokohama, the oldest international school in Japan, said she was fully in the international school bubble during her school days but has now completely left it.

Now 21 and entering her third year at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Morohashi spends her summers in Japan.

Her family, which owns a museum that houses works by Salvador Dali in Fukushima, fled to Yokohama in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. Her sister, then in elementary school, stayed in the Japanese school system, but her parents enrolled Morohashi at Saint Maur so she could one day become the international contact for the museum.

Morohashi says she was fully in the international school bubble during her school days but has now completely left it. | JOHAN BROOKS

Morohashi said that she made many friends during her time at Saint Maur, but now, when she returns to Japan on long holidays, she tries to meet new people.

“Many graduates of international schools still mainly meet each other, whether they are in Japan, London, or New York. I’m interested in meeting new people,” she said.

Many students at international schools, including those with a Japanese parent, don’t speak Japanese or don’t make an effort to learn even though they are in Japan for many years, she said.

“They are in a bubble where they think English is a more important language which makes them special,” she said.

Apart from her possible future running the family’s Dali museum, Morohashi, who is strongly career-oriented, wants to first study graphic design and branding, and work in the creative field.

Arno van Cauteren, a graduate of The British School in Tokyo who is now in his fourth year at Eindhoven University of Technology, said that he is aware of the criticism that international school students tend to hide in their own bubble.

But for many, the bubble is not necessarily a choice, but rather something that they struggle to escape.

“I know that some kids actually want to integrate in Japanese society but are afraid to be rejected,” he said. “After all, Japanese society is very strict to people who look different, or who are unable to behave in ways that are expected here. It’s not like they all want to stay in their bubble.”