Being an exchange student, regardless of which country is your host, forces you to live with a different family in a strange country and to adopt a new way of life. You're put through immense challenges and forced to grow as person regardless of exactly where you are.
So if I could receive benefits from being a student in any country, why am I so insistent on Japan?
Just as one simply knows that chocolate has a desirable taste, so have I felt that Japan (and most East Asian cultures/countries, really) is appealing. I haven't really had a reason for it, just the inherent knowledge that Japan is "cool".
A few years back, my mum remarked on the oddness of her children's interest in Asian culture when she, as a child, had a sort of aversion to the region. It wasn't until then that I realized that Japan wasn't universally recognized as awesome, that it was something that I felt.
And then, as I thought about it more, I came to realize how shallow that characterization of an entire region of the world, of an entire country and its people, is. Saying, "Japan is cool," shows a lack of understanding and appreciation of the complexities of Japan's culture (of any culture, really).
So, yes, I like Japan's flavor. But that's not really the answer to the question.
Reading other exchange students' blogs, I've seen that a lot of kids want to go to Japan because of their intense love of anime and manga, their wild fantasies of becoming J-pop idols, or something similarly related to the Japanese pop culture that we increasingly see in our Western lives.
Yes, I watch anime and read manga and enjoy it. My earliest ventures on Youtube consisted of me watching pieced-apart episodes of shows of which I'd never heard, following the recommended videos until I would eventually reach a dead-end (especially if that dead-end was Lucky Star, which bored me to death and beyond which I couldn't seem to find anything else). But I didn't become a real anime watcher until the past year or so, after I had already decided to go to Japan. My interest in Japan didn't spark from anime. Maybe they've grown alongside each other, but "Japan" has been something to me long before "anime" ever was.
But still, why Japan? I'm going to Japan to understand why I like it. I can study it all I want and still never truly know it until I've actually lived there and, at least for a short while, become a part of its culture.
Beyond that, though, I feel that Japan can provide an experience unlike anywhere else.
Japan's long history of isolation developed in it a culture entirely unique to any other in the world. Today, Japan still carries deep ties to its past and is rich in customs of beauty and discipline. Japanese traditions seem alien to us Westerners, and it is difficult to truly comprehend the reality of the society.
On the other hand, modern Japan has highly Westernized elements. It has become a world economic leader, and so many of our electronics and vehicles carry Japanese names that they no longer sound strange. Japanese citizens pull on their cotton t-shirts, tie their Nike shoes, and eat at McDonald's (MAKUDONARUDO, or MAKU for short) just like us in America.
This balance of totally strange and completely familiar is why. Japan having a culture that is arguably the farthest from what I've come to know while still being so similar is why. Coming to understand a society that is so alien to me will stretch me, force me to grow and to see our world with a bigger view while seeing what I already know will give something to which I can connect.
To me, Japan can provide that contradicting familiarity and complete foreignness to an extent that no other country can really match.
That, coupled with my already existing desire to understand it more, is why.
