Host Family
Trip Start
Jan 27, 2008
1
4
6
Trip End
May 31, 2008
Hirakata,
Japan
Monday, February 4, 2008
We live about a 40 minute bus ride(s) from campus. I take one bus in the morning from the Koda stop to Hirakata City Station bus 9A, and there I change buses and get on one of multiple buses that have a stop at Kansai Gaidai. This morning Okasan rode with me to school before leaving to go visit her sister in Nara. The trip does not feel like 40 minutes, it feels much shorter.
I only had slight problems returning home. Where the bus drops you off is not where the bus picks you back up again. From Kansai Gaidai to Hirakata City Station was no problem, maybe because pretty much every bus goes to Hirakata City Station, or perhaps because I went rode with Ashley and we wandered around until we found the City Hall to turn in our Alien Registration forms. Well I say wandered around, but we were looking at signs, and it took us all of 2 seconds to realize that this was poor planning and neither of us actually knew the kanji for City Hall. Luckily we found someone who knew enough English to lead us to the alien registration application area. That's one thing I've noticed. If you walk up to someone here and ask them where is ___? They don't tell you. They nod and lead you to wherever it is you are trying to find. It's kind of nice, but I always feel bad that I'm making them basically lead me around. That method is coincidentally how I found my way to the pick-up bus stop that would take me from Hirakata City Station back to Koda.
Right now conversations are a little awkward. Misa, my host sister is about 5 years older and speaks enough English that paired with my little bit of Japanese we are able to have fairly flowing conversations. Realistically, every conversation I've had with Misa or Maki (the oldest daughter, who doesn't live at home but her and her husband and their four month old baby were over visiting yesterday evening) have been those conversations I've learned in Japanese 101-201. What sports do you like? What's your favorite food? What type of music do you like? No. We don't have much snow where I'm from etc. I don't know what we'll talk about tonight.
I'm supposed to be teaching Okasan English, so every time she talks to me she talks in English. I'm supposed to teach her through everyday life and arrange some kind of schedule during the week. I have absolutely no clue how to teach English. The only plan I've come up with so far is only speak in English to her for a couple of hours a week. That and answer any questions like what is ___ in English? I don't really know how to teach so if anyone has suggestions that would be great.
Otousan mumbles. And he mumbles in some kind of dialect or accent that I really can't understand. I understand most of what Misa and Maki say, I understand about every fourth sentence that Okasan says in Japanese, but I feel so bad that I have no clue what Otousan says. He'll say something and then pause looking at me like he expecting a response, but I have no clue what the question is. Generally I just nod and say 'hai', and when they start going 'Aa! Sugoi!' I know that whatever I said was NOT the right response.
I don't think Maki's husband was expecting to see me. He looked really surprised and confused when he walked in from the entry way and into the family room. We really didn't get a chance to talk because he came home at about 11 and I went to bed sometime around midnight.
Last night we had Nabe for dinner. For the most part it was really good. Nabe is a kind of hot pot dinner. There's a pan and hot plate set on the table. You stew meat, vegetables and tofu in a miso soup based broth. What actually goes inside is generally left up to the cook and as such boasts many variations. Okasan's had beef (I think), mushrooms (little brown ones all connected together, and yes, I did in fact eat them), roots, bamboos shoots, tofu, onion, daikon raddish, and this odd sort of vegetable which looked like the stems and leaves of a dandelion (which I managed to choke down a polite amount, man it was nasty though). After all the main stuff was gone Okasan put in udon noodles. Everytime that I put down my bowl they put more in it. I ate way to much but Okasan just kept trying to feed me more and more. 'Onaka ga ippai' seemed to have meaning to them (and yes dad, it does truly mean I'm full, I wasn't just saying a random phrase that actually means nothing).
The house is bordered on three sides by a major intersections and the front corner is completely blocked by billboards. Like all house in Japan it is skinny, tall and absolutely freezing. I literally feel every car and motorcycle that passes, and don't even get me started on the trucks. They're going to take a while to sleep through. The house itself is a little more run down that most that I have seen, but my room is pretty neat.
It is a traditional Japanese room, sliding shoji doors, low table, tatami mats, and a futon that I have to fold up and put away in the corner everyday (way more complicated and bothersome than making your bed each morning), then at bed time I have to pull it out and unfold everything.
There's a heater, but like all houses in Japan, I'm only allowed to have it on when I'm in the room and I have to turn it off when I go to bed at night. There is no insulation in Japanese houses, so if something catches on fire it burns fast. And because the houses are all so cramped the whole neighborhood can go down in a matter of minutes. Supposedly the families that cause the fires are ostracized to the point that they are driven out of the neighborhood, they don't even have the option of rebuilding on the same plot.
The bathroom situation is even more bizarre than the one in the seminar houses. The bath is self heating; I haven't gotten a chance to use the bath yet. I'm looking forward to it. The shower is just a little hose attached to the second faucet. There's a little stool that you pull out and sit on while you're taking a shower. And the shower is not over the bathtub. In fact the bathtub is not used as anything but a bathtub. That's all in a little room by itself. Outside that is a large sink and a laundry machine. That room has sliding doors that can close off the kitchen and the hallway. It's all just the back corner of the house. Next door to the bathtub room is the toilet room. It's very small and there is a pair of slippers left in the room specifically for using in the toilet room. The toilet itself is quite gross. Imagine a honey bucket toilet mixed with an RV toilet and it's kind of like that. After you finish doing your business you pull up half of the flusher, and that lets water into the bowl then you pull up the second half of the flusher and that opens the hole and everything goes down after a while. However this really nasty chemical (among others) smell comes up and the toilet room is small and has no window so the stench kind of clings to the room. For the most part I think I'm just going to use the toilets at school. Besides, the ones at school have self heating seats. Which is nice, because the rest of the school is cold, not quite as cold as outside or my house but fairly close.
My Japanese speaking class seems easy. I may try to take the jump test, which will allow me to move to the next level up, next week, but for now I think I will stay through the review just to make sure.
My first lecture class went smoothly as well. My teacher is awesome. He has a masters in Journalism and has worked all over the world as a foreign correspondent for TV Asahi. He's even going to let me sit in on his Making News in Japan class for a little while. If there is a field trip to anywhere I will definitely wrangle myself an invite.
This weekend my host family is going somewhere. I'm not sure where, but I'm not invited apparently, which is okay, as long as I figure out how to turn on the space heater in the family room and the microwave in the kitchen. Right now I'm planning to go visit my friends in the seminar houses. Saturday there is a tentative plan to go shopping in Shinsaibashi and Sunday possibly re-invading my suite to cook something dessert like or perhaps even chocolate in honor of Valentines Day.
Valentines day is an even bigger deal in Japan than it is in the US. Homemade chocolates are the key and women are supposed to give them to every important male in their life. If it is a romantic interest the women are supposed to put a lot more effort and a personal touch to the chocolate. But that isn't to say that all chocolate that is received on Valentines day indicates that the male is a romantic interest, there's also giri, or obligation, chocolate given to bosses and the like. It is only women who give chocolate on Valentines day. March 14th is White Day, which is when males give gifts to the women they like or return gifts for those who gave them giri-chocolate. There is no real stipulation on what type of gift it needs to be.
I don't have much access to internet. Unless I learn how to hack into locked signals I won't be on the internet much except for at school. I feel uncomfortable asking my host family if I can use their computer. I have my own but the absolute only LAN port in the house is the one that Misa's laptop is currently connected to. Once I have a better grasp on what my weekly schedule is like I'll figure out a time to skype people.
