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Published: September 11th 2006
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My New Family
Manako, Yoshimi and Kyoshi I don't have much time to write as I am supposed to be leaving soon for a week-long Japanese course at the Kagoshima Asia-Pacific Intercultural Centre, but I wanted to post something about my weekend. Although I had been planning a laid back weekend full of sleeping in and not much else, I was asked to participate in a home stay program halfway through last week. I had heard about the programme and had purposefully not signed up but if there's one thing about me that will never change it's that I can't say "no." Well, this turned out to be one of the most interesting and heartwarming things I've done since arriving in Japan. I just happen to have made a speech about it to all the students this morning so I'm attaching the script for the sake of saving time. Excuse the simple English...this is just literally what happened:
Today I would like to tell you about a very special thing that I did here in Japan. Last weekend, I did a home stay with a Japanese family in Kanoya. Their family name was Okatomi. This family has a mother named Yoshimi, a father named Hiroaki, a girl
who is eleven years old named Manako and a six-year old boy named Kyoshi.
I met the family at the Kanoya Higashi Chiku Gakushu Centre on Saturday. Many other ALTs from Kagoshima-ken were also doing home stays in Kanoya that weekend so everybody took a Japanese cooking class together with our host families so we could get to know each other. After we had eaten the meal we prepared, we had a short lesson about tying Furoshiki and then we went home with our families.
As soon as we got to my family’s house we left again to visit their grandfather at the hospital to wish him a happy birthday. He turned 74 years old! Although he was not able to speak, I think he was very excited to see a foreigner with his family. There were some people at the hospital that could talk and I spent some time telling them about Canada and trying to speak Japanese.
When we finished at the hospital my family drove to their grandmother’s house for dinner. (I just have to say here that this was one genki (energetic) grandmother and one of the sweetest women I have ever met!) The grandmother’s house is far from the city and has a big beautiful garden where she grows cucumbers, peanuts and many flowers. When we got there she gave us chestnuts and sweets and cold tea. I really like chestnuts so these were a real treat! For dinner we had yakiniku, tako and onigiri. For dessert we had slices of pear and mikkan. Everything was delicious!
My host family’s house is quite big so I got to sleep in my own room. The bed was very comfortable. I woke up a bit early on Sunday morning so I watched cartoons with Kyoshi before everybody else woke up. Yoshimi cooked us a big traditional Japanese breakfast with green tea, fried fish, tamago, pickles, rice with nori, and miso soup. We finished off the meal with vanilla yogourt.
After breakfast we went to the Kanoya public library. I can not read Japanese very well so I read children’s Japanese books and read one story in English to Manako. We left the library at about noon and everybody was hungry again so we went to “Gusto” for lunch. I had a hamburger with soup and two different kinds of bread.
Afterwards, Hiroaki drove us to Kihoku to see the astronomical observatory. It is a very interesting building and you can see many beautiful things from the balcony like fields, forests and big windmills. There is also a park nearby and I enjoyed playing on the rope course with Kyoshi and Manako. To finish the afternoon we went back to the Okatomi’s house for some snacks. We watched golf on T.V. and chatted while we ate; then my family walked me back to the Higashi Chiku Gakushu Centre where my car was parked. Before I left, Manako gave me a letter she had written to me.
My family and I enjoyed the homestay so much that I am going to stay with them again on September 30th. I found it a very good way to practice my Japanese and my family got to learn a bit of English while I was there. I have heard about many students from Shibushi High School doing home stays in America. I think that this is one of the best ways to learn English and it is much easier than going to class. If you have a chance to do a home stay with an English family I hope you will take it. It is so much fun to spend time with people from other cultures!
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Jess and Avery
non-member comment
amazing
How is your japanese coming along? The food you are trying intrigues me....can you send me some reciepes? Can you send me your e-mail address as well..or aunt D if your reading this can you send it to me! Keep up the amazing adventures...lots of love jess and av