Raising Black Kids in Rural Japan
When Amanda first interviewed Candice Rowe in 2016, she and her husband Marvin were a few years into a new life in rural Japan — a life that began when Candice, unable to find steady work in Jamaica, took a teaching position through an exchange program in the Kanto region. Marvin followed a year later, boarding his first-ever flight to join her.
This conversation catches up with them years later. What was once a family of three has become a family of five. Candice and Marvin have since moved to rural Aomori in northern Japan, where they’ve built a life far from any international community — the “sticks,” as Candice calls it, with one mixed Nigerian-Japanese family as their closest Black neighbors.
What "Home" Means for a Black Family in Japan
Twelve years in, neither Candice nor Marvin speak Japanese well. Their daughter Asia does — fluently, naturally, and increasingly as her first language. She’s the family’s translator, their bridge to teachers, neighbors, and paperwork. She’s also, in her own words, “yard” in a country her parents still sometimes call foreign.
The conversation moves through what changed and what didn’t: the difficulty of finding footing as a couple when only one of you has work, the loneliness of being the only family that looks like yours for miles, and the surprising joy of spotting another Black or Brown face in an unlikely place. Candice’s answer, when asked what she’d tell someone considering a life abroad, doubles as the emotional center of the episode: learn your culture before you leave it, because distance will teach you what proximity never did.
It’s also, unmistakably, a Rowe family conversation — funny, warm, and completely unfiltered.
Here are some excerpts from Amanda’s conversation with Candy. You can listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts. You can can also visit The Black Expat YouTube Channel to listen in.
For Candy & Marvin’s original article, visit The First Timers.
Excerpt: Creating Community
They don't speak like us. Because when you talk about community, you would think that the Nigerian guy is part of our community. You could say, yes, but we just don't see him. So when you talk about community, it is the people around you. Like my neighbor right here next to me. That's my community. My daughter's friends’ parents, they are also a part of my community. My community, they don't look like me. They don't speak like me. Their culture is different, and that's okay.
Excerpt: Sharing Your Culture
When I came here, I was so shocked that people here actually know stuff about Jamaica that I didn't know or I didn't care to know. They would ask me something, maybe say about coffee to drink, and I would be like, Blue Mountain Coffee, and they would start talking. And I wouldn't know what they're talking about, because that is not something that I was interested in as a Jamaican. But they [the Japanese] have been outside of the country and being so interested in it, it made me want to learn more about my own culture. It sounds bad, but it's so true.
Excerpt: Where's Home?
For my kids, this is home for them. This is yard for them. When my husband and I talk, we talk about yard and we talk about home. For us, Japan is home, and Jamaica is yard. But for my kids, this [Japan] is yard.”
To hear the full episode, click below or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
The conversation that doesn't exist anywhere else.
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