Homestay

I chose live with a host family for the semester. I was actually pretty worried about my decision - having lived in a dorm for the past two years, I've gotten pretty accustomed to living on my own and taking care of myself. I was also kind of nervous about communication, and I've heard some scary stories about how Japanese people are so indirect and indecipherable. On the other hand, I figured this would be the best way to really experience Japanese everyday life, practice my Japanese, and best of all, eat home-cooked meals every day.

Overall, I'm really happy with my homestay situation. I really like my family. My family consists of my host parents, who are both in their late sixties, and their 30-something year old son. The dad is a kimono designer (which is sooooo cool), so he works at home. I'm not sure what the son does - he leaves early in the morning before I wake up, and he gets home pretty late, after the rest of the family has eaten dinner. My family's been hosting students for almost 20 years now, and I can really tell they've had experience. They're very straightforward about communicating, which means I never have to worry that I'm doing something wrong and they're not telling me about it.

Another great thing - I have no curfew! I know some other students have host parents who really worry and insist that they come home fairly early. My parents don't mind at all if I stay out late, as long as I let them know beforehand. Along the same lines, I love the fact that I still feel independent. I've heard other students have host parents who do their laundry, take them shopping, and so on. Which would probably be pretty convenient, but I actually prefer doing things on my own, really. Also, the food is amazing, but I think that's true for all of the host families. I think just about every student in the program insists that his/her host mom is the best cook.

I have a room of my own on the first floor of the house, across from my host father's workshop. I do feel a little cut off from the rest of the family, because they all generally stay on the second floor. Once I leave the dinner table, I usually go to my room and don't see my family at all for the rest of the night. On the other hand, I get a bathroom of my own, and I can do whatever I want in my room without worrying about disturbing other people. The picture on the left is of my room. Thankfully, my host parents never try to come into my room or do any sort of cleaning for me, so I can be as messy as I want.

One complaint that's not really my host family's fault: because gas/electricity is so expensive in Japan, I have to be really conscious of energy usage. Which means, during the first month of the program when Kyoto was still ridiculously hot and humid, I couldn't keep the A/C or even the fan running at night (I cheated and left the fan on several times though...). It was pretty disgusting - I'd take a shower at night and wake up sweaty and not too excited about starting the day. I can't take long showers either, because water's expensive too. Now it's gotten a lot cooler, which is great, except now I'm beginning to anticipate the opposite problem. There have been a couple of nights when I didn't sleep too well because I was cold. And of course, I can't use the heater at night either. Right now it's still bearable, but I'm worried about what'll happen once the actual winter sets in. I can't even try to cheat and leave the heater on, because apparently the noise is audible throughout the house, and my host mother has trouble sleeping as it is. I already whined plenty about the weather in St. Louis, even when I was free to manipulate the temperature in the dorms as much as I wanted, so this is one aspect of life that really hard for me to adjust to.