Life with the host fam

(I was going to write a blog post about my host family, but then remembered I’d already written one ages ago at the start of October. Although some of the details are outdated – Rui is now five for example – the sentiment still rings true.)

Today wasn’t particularly special, but like most days in Japan, it’s ending with me feeling ridiculously giddy and happy. Really, there are lots of aspects of my life in Japan I enjoy, but what causes me to grin like an idiot before I drift off to sleep is, in most cases, my host family.

I’ve heard a lot of reasons for not having a host family and most of them I agree with. I don’t get internet at my host family’s house. I have to drag my laptop to school or use the computer lab. No streaming television shows from the US for me. Heck, just posting photos to Facebook has proven to be difficult. I don’t get to cook anything for myself and I use cook here in the loosest sense of the term. The only thing I’ve prepared for myself since moving into my home stay is making toast once in awhile. That’s it. I don’t really get to choose the menu or raid the refrigerator either. It’s not my house: 95% of the time I feel like a guest. I’m not walking on eggshells constantly, but I’m not flopping down on the couch and zoning out to TV whenever I feel like it either. My host brother and sister are four and seven respectively. I repeat, my host brother and sister are four and seven. They fight, they cry, they pester and bug. They’re loud and sticky and don’t give a crap about personal space. Being in a home stay means you follow the host family’s rules. I don’t have a curfew per say, but if I’m coming home later than usual, I have to let them know. Although I can, theoretically, spend more time in my room than I do, I feel obligated to be with the family even when I feel like some quiet, alone time.

Those are just some of the downsides of having a host family. There are horror stories – real ones – about other host families. I know people who have an eight o’clock or nine o’clock curfew – even on the weekends. I have a few friends and acquaintances for whom it takes two hours to get to school each day. I know one guy who chose to move out of his home stay and back into the dorms because his host mom never fed him and was a heavy drinker.

That all being said, if I could go back in time to when I was typing away at my study abroad application for Kansai Gaidai, I wouldn’t change my decision to apply to live with a host family. For some reason or other, the home stay gods smiled down upon me and I landed with a home stay family that’s pretty much a perfect fit for me. It’s fairly safe to say that one of the big factors in my having such a pleasant time in Japan is my host family.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, today wasn’t particularly special. I came home from school and read a couple chapters of A People’s History of the United States (which I’ve been working on for the past month now), had dinner with the family (squid, eggplant and bread in a meat sauce, rice, and avocado slices), read three pictures book in English to Rui and Mao (my host siblings for those of you who haven’t been following along), played a game with them, studied for a Japanese vocabulary quiz with my host mom, had a bath, and got ready for bed. This is my general after school schedule.

What’s so great about that, I hear you asking. For me, it’s the small, detailed little moments. I taught Mao and Rui a clapping game I learned from one of my roommates last year and slowly, but surely Mao really started getting the hang of it. (Rui not so much, but he’s four.) This memory of my roommate and I playing this silly game and then it spilling over to create a new memory, a Japan memory, was kind of cool. After dinner, my host mom surprised me and the host sibs with a small package of Oreos to share and she immediately pulled out the Skippy peanut butter she’d bought me earlier so that I could have a favorite treat of mine just the way I like it. (Best of all is that my host mom has learned she likes Oreos with peanut butter too!)

When my host dad came home (he worked late and unfortunately missed dinner) and was sitting down to eat the plate my host mom had set aside for him, Rui immediately had him doubled over in laughter with his wacky antics. My host mom, too, loves to laugh. At dinner, which is usually Rui and my host dad’s mini-comedy hour, she picks up the comedic slack when my host dad isn’t there. I like so, so much that my host family is light-hearted and quick to laughter. It’s reassuring and comforting and makes me feel as though a fragment of my own family is here with me in Japan.

So yes, sure, there are downsides to having a host family, but the positive aspects more than make up for it. Although I’m sure my experience in Japan would still be good if I lived in a dorm instead, having experienced what living with a host family is like, I can’t imagine living in a dorm would give me such a connected feeling to home, family or Japanese life.