Learners are socialized both into and through language by means of interactions with others. Drawing on a language socialization theoretical framework, this research examines narratives from a Chinese student, Jin (pseudonym) in Japan to shed light on her identity development in the struggle of learning Japanese and using English. Interviews were conducted twice based on fully consenting, after which the transcriptions were read through several times to grasp a whole picture of the interviewee and analyzed by MAXQDA. As a result, insights into language learning motivation and language choice are provided. In Jin’s case, she adopts English as a Lingua Franca to escape from being required as a part of the Japanese community and from acculturation into the local culture. On the other hand, Jin’s low motivation for learning Japanese can be also accounted for by the inconvenience of using Japanese as a foreigner in Japan.