Sunday, September 7, 2008

About my host family and things that are different in Japan.

New Pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/30087712@N08/sets/72157607174988033/

The first day I met my host family I had a ridiculously awkward lunch – where everyone ate in near silence broken up with fast and incomprehensible Japanese. My host sister played with her cell phone, and my host mother attempted conversation but at this point I was too nervous to understand. After spilling my orange Jell-O on myself I was totally freaked. Was there going to be three months worth of dinners in which I sat in silence and wished I had any conversational skill?
Thankfully things went up from there. I have only seen my host dad that first day of orientation. I don’t know where he goes, or what he does, but he could just spend all his time upstairs. Like I said – that is an area that I have never seen and probably won’t. I read online that that might be the case – and I can survive without a complete tour.
My host mother has two part-time jobs from what I understand. One is an afternoon cram school for elementary kids working on mathematics, and the other involves a maybe reality and her entire Sunday’s. So the parts of the house that I have seen are the entry room and the room that the children cram in. That leads to the kitchen and then my room and the living room – which is essentially Chi’s room. Chi is my host sister. Her full name is Chihiro (like in Spirited Away) and she likes to sing. I know this because she will randomly break into song at any given point. Much like my real host sister, actually. She is also otaku for this band ‘Kah-Tun’ pronounces ‘cartoon.’ Which is a Japanese boy band consisting of five attractive Japanese males. Her favorite is the lead singer and I had a strange moment watching TV with the family when her favorite singer came on and interviewed Jodie Foster in English. Jodie Foster is apparently in Japan right now promoting her movie Nim’s Island. Jodie foster is not very friendly.
My routine has during the week is basically that I get up in the morning and my host mother makes me a breakfast of milk tea and toast with either butter or a strange version of peanut butter that is very sweet and tastes exactly like the name (pieces of peanut mixed with butter). Then I scramble for my books, put my shoes on, and bike to my train station. My bike ride was a challenge the first five or six times I did it, and the first time I ventured out on the ride by myself my host mother drew me a map. She is all about giving me maps – which I could not be happier about. Also, Japan doesn’t really believe in sidewalks, and that makes my bike ride all the more terrifying.
After I bike to the station I leave my bike in an interesting parking garage exclusively for bikes. This turned out to be a little tricky – there are two levels to this parking garage and one level closes at 9pm and the other is open 24hrs. On the first night I stayed out later than 9pm I chose exactly the wrong story and had to walk home. The bike I ride is a version of a cruiser that my brother and sister long for – and it’s a pretty sweet bike. Old but very functional and it has baskets on the front and back. Actually I’m pretty sure every Japanese bike has baskets, and most of them are this version of a cruiser.
After the bike ride I take a train for five stops and then walk to school. My station is tiny and the local train conveniently stops one stop before the school so I have to change trains for one stop. But the trains really are always on time and they come every ten to fifteen minutes. I love this about Japan. I want to pack up the train system and take it home with me.
School consists of a three hour long Japanese class every mon, tues, thurs, fri. And on Mondays I have a three hour history class, and on Thursdays my three hour literature class. Three hours is an ungodly amount of time to spend in any class – expecially a lecture class in the afternoon. I’m going to have to make it through somehow but it might be difficult. Wednesdays there isn’t class – but there are JSP field trips. I am especially excited about the week long ‘kansai’ trip where we got to Kyoto, the Horoshima museum, and a really pretty temple. These are all the toursity things I really want to do outside of Tokyo.
Okay, after school I either go out with friends (rarely) mostly I go home and do some homework and then have dinner with my Host mom and Chi and then either sit and talk with my host mom or watch TV with chi. My host mom and I communicate a lot by drawing pictures and Chi and I communicate using her English-Japanese electronic dictionary. Chi also has a large collection of manga in Japanese which I have been attempting to read. The pictures help, but there are repeated phrases that I don’t understand and must clarify before I can really get what’s happening in them. Mostly I just look at the pictures and kind of make up the story using the few phrases I know.
Oh and at night I take a shower in the bathroom. And I mean in the bathroom. Japanese showers consist of a waterproof room and a sink and a bath. The toilet is kept in a totally separate room. But the showers here are amazing- I have yet to take a bath.
My host mother is much more western than a lot of my friend’s JSP family’s. She eats bread with me in the morning and doesn’t do the laundry as often and dinner often comes from instant or convienance store food. Regardless of her housekeeping skills I think she’s great. Both Chi and her mother laugh easily and they are always open to listening and trying to understand my bad Japanese.
Something interesting about these host families is that a lot of them host tons of students over the course of many years. My host mom has apparently had eight students here so far. Some good- some not so good. She told me about this one girl who would randomly burp and fart loudly during the meal and that totally freaked Chi out. Another guy staying with them would blow his nose and leave the tissues in my host sisters couch, and also eat grape seeds and leave those on the couch as well. You run quite a risk hosting an exchnge student – especially an American college student.

THINGS DIFFERENT ABOUT JAPAN

-Milk tea. Which is earl grey tea with really rich milk and sugar in it. My favorite form is Iced milk tea. It is delicious.
-Huge seedless grapes. Japan has two unique grapes one big and long, one round and big. I had some for dinner in Tokyo and they were the most flavorful and delicious grapes I have ever eaten. Also, the Japanese skin these grapes when they eat them. Which I guess makes sense given how large the grapes are and how thick the skins. It also explains the Manga I’ve read where people skin the grapes for each other. Which never really made sense till now. I also mentioned to my host mother that I loved these grapes and I have now eaten them at every meal since then. Which is nice and kind of intimidating.
-Convenience stores. Called ‘convini’s’ in Japanese. 7-11 is really strong chain in Japan and convenience stores are really convenient. You get money, pay bills, buy decent food, manga, underwear, snack items and apparently pre-paid cell phones there.
-I’ve already talked about how weird the toilets are.
-Tissues. The Japanese freaking’ love tissues. They use them as napkins and towels and for normal tissue like actions. When I was in Tokyo I saw a store clerk cleaning a front stoop with tissues. Also, people will hand you tissues everywhere with an advertisements for…something inside.
-Towels. The Japanese truly follow the hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy’s number 1 rule – always have a towel with you. Everyone carries either handkerchiefs or washcloth sized pretty towels with them everywhere. They are great for wiping the sweat off in the humidity, drying yours hands because there are never towels in the bathroom (presumably because everyone has a towel with them.)

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