Tag Archives: host family

Traveling to a new city and experiencing Nou

Paul wearing the oni mask and costume
Paul wearing the oni mask and costume

There’s something intimidating about having to move to a new city every week. Right after getting used to a family and becoming part of it, you need to pack up and repeat the process over again in a foreign place. I won’t lie; I was scared to leave Omuta initially. I had grown so attached to my host family; my dad Mizu, my mom Riko, and my siblings Junsei and Koto. But I knew what I was signing up for when I joined World Campus Japan, and meeting new families was boldened in the contract.

We got to the bus station at the very start of the rainy season. It was pouring, and we had been running late. I chalk it up to taking my sweet time saying some final goodbyes to my siblings and mom, but I’ll blame the rain on anything official. We pulled up just as everyone was loading up onto the bus, so Mizu had to take off fast. The goodbye was short, but I know we’ll miss each other very much. Afterall, he had become my dad in the week I lived with him, and I became his son.

The ride was short, but the air in the bus was heavy. I think everyone felt the same growing anxiety at the prospect of meeting a new host family. I slept for the hour and a half drive to the YMCA in Kumamoto City. After arriving and waking up a bit, we received some free time from our councelors. We strolled through the thinning rain to the shopping street down the way, and we all split up and went our own ways. I wound up with another student from Sweden, and we had lunch at a curry house together, talking about our lives back home and how we felt about the world in the present moment. It was in that moment I realized I had really made true friends while on this journey of mine. I made my way back to our meeting spot early so that I could work on some journals for the trip.

We had been invited to experience a type of Japanese theatre called Nou. We walked down the road to a small cozy house nestled in an ally. Inside and up the stairs, a small stage had been built by the house’s owner. He demonstrated his beautiful art, akin to opera in the west, and then invited us to try the movements and some of the costumes. The air was thick with amusement as we watched our friends make stiff movements and try the exotic costumes and masks. We thanked the very talented actor, and we headed back to the YMCA to meet our Kumamoto host families. I won’t lie, I was terrified in the moment.

Families started to pour in, but we had no idea who our host family would be. We were given cards with our family’s info and we lined up in the front of the room and introduced ourselves to our families. My hands subtly shook as I read out the name of my new family; Takayama.

My host dad, Yoshi, stood up and waved at me. His wife, Tomoko, stood close behind with my 5-month-old host sister Hiyori in a sling. My younger host brothers, Eito and Kento stared at me with awe as I walked over and towered over them. My fear melted away to worry; worry that I would be obnoxious or too different from what they’re used to. But as we drove home that worry subsided, and a feeling of familiarity washed over me.

It occurred to me that the best part of this trip has been that feeling. The feeling of meeting and becoming apart of a new family. Every week, I was welcomed with open arms and, for all intents and purposes, was adopted into a new family. It was effectively the cherry on the cake that World Campus had offered me.

I didn’t just stay with families, I became a part of them.

Paul George Newman
USA

Exploring the coal mine history of Omuta

Thomas and his host family
Thomas and his host family

Our Host Family day was packed full with many different activities instead of just one big event! I was hoping to take it easy on the Host Family day but we had a schedule to keep so there really was no time to rest. My Host mother is a real movie enthusiast and she wanted us to go to the movie theater! It was a different experience because the movie started at 9:30 in the morning and I was very surprised to see so many people there. Especially because in Sweden we do not go to the movies that early, it is more of an afternoon and evening event. After the movie ended we went to the Omuta Coal Museum!

The Coal Museum was a very small but interesting museum. My Host mother wanted us to go there because of the Coal Mine History the city had. Even though it was small I still learned a lot from the information texts and the models were good representations of how it used to look like. In the end I learned something new about the city and the coal mine industry. Close to the museum we ate our lunch at a Ramen place.

Before heading to our next activity with my Host Family’s friends we went into one of the malls in Omuta. They wanted to buy me a gift and we went around the mall looking for something that I would want. However, we did not find anything interesting so we decided to go to another mall the next day.

After a quick rest we went to the Bowling center where we played three games with their friends. My Host mother and Host father are Bowling experts so of course they crushed me and got way better results. It was a lot of fun and we cheered on each other. I would like to add that if you ever go Bowling in Japan, look up your japanese shoe size so that you don’t have to try a lot of shoes to see which one fits. It did this mistake unfortunately.

We ended the Host Family Day with a nice dinner with their friends at the Suchi bar that was nearby. As always we had a lot of fun and the food was amazing. I enjoyed our day together and I have learned so much.

Thomas Jinton
Sweden

Host family day in Tama

Cheyenne with her host family
Cheyenne with her host family

Hello everyone,

Today was the last host family day. This host family also used to be the host family of another Dutch person. They said they were hoping for another anime fan and that is what they got. They also suggested going to a place that anime fans like. So warning the rest of this blog will be about anime stuff.

I was very tired from the other days, so I was happy I could sleep until 8 o’clock today. After that I ate some toast for breakfast. This family likes Western style cooking a lot and has Western breakfast almost every day and Western style dinner three or four times a week. As we had already gone to Akihabara on our personal day we decided to go to Ikebukuro. I chose this location not only because there is anime stuff, but there was also a non-anime related place that I wanted to visit since I was very young, the planetarium in Sunshine City. I always wanted to see a planetarium and the last time I was in Tokyo, three years ago, the place was closed, so I was happy that I could go this time.

Another thing we did was looking for a new backpack. As we have a pretty tight schedule I thought that I didn’t need a lot of extra space, but everyone was so nice and gave me so many presents that I didn’t have enough space in my backpack anymore. At the Uniqlo I found a nice backpack for not too much money. After that it was time to go to the planetarium. The show we saw was in English called: Fantasy railroad in the stars. I can only understand a bit of Japanese, so I think I understood the base of the story, but the details were too difficult, so I might have some misunderstandings about to the story. The story was about a boy that traveled through the galaxy with a girl and they learn about the stars during their travels. It was a very beautiful show and I am happy to have fulfilled this childhood dream of mine.

After that my host sister wanted to show me a place where she sometimes goes: a butler café. It was a lot of fun, but also very awkward for me. It looks and feels so formal, but it isn’t. I ate some pasta as they only had Western food. After that we did some manga shopping. I bought two manga today. I want to improve my Japanese reading and manga are easier than normal books and I just like manga.

In the evening we ate chicken with onion, salad, pumpkin and onigiri. They always eat so much for every meal I can’t get used to it, but it tastes so good. We also had a good talk about the cultural differences in our countries.

Today was a very fun day. I hope the rest of the rest of the week will be like this too.

Cheyenne Rizzo (The Netherlands)

A rainy day and a potluck party

Group picture with the host families in Mito
Group picture with the host families in Mito

Woke up at 6:30 am as usual when my host mom knocked on the door. This morning however, the plans had been cancelled due to potential heavy rains and so I could sleep in. As much as I was disappointed about not going to the Kairokuen, I was quite tired and happy to sleep for a few more hours.

At 9 I got dressed and had breakfast with my host family. My host mother made a really tasty breakfast with eggs bacon and edamame and my favourite, curry bread.

After we had put away the dishes, we all headed to the Kokusai kouryo to meet with all the other families. On the way we noticed that it actually had barely rained. When we arrived, I quickly joined the other World Campus Japan members for a quick meeting before us all having fun playing games and singing silly songs with the families as well as enjoying the delicious food people brought for the potluck party!

I spent most of the time with my family, but especially with my host dad. We talked about a lot of things together including the education and a little bit about his trip to my country when he was younger.

After clean up, my family decided to still quickly take me to the Kairakuen, but now it was actually raining and very badly… Instead we decided to go visit the Kodokan, an important school where clansmen and their sons had gone to school to learn everything from mathematics to martial arts. The building was quite old but extremely beautiful. Because of the heavy rain, the garden surrounding the traditional Japanese building looked stunning and made the whole area seem like a movie set for a historical movie.

My host family also translated and explained all the panels that were only written in Japanese for me. When we left, the rain was much worse. After a short run in the rain, we made a quick stop at the shopping centre where we picked up some ingredients for dinner which was curry!

After we cooked together and ate, we watched a few game shows on TV together before finally going to bed early. The next day was Host family day, and we planned to leave as soon as possible the next morning and also hoped for no rain.

Sonja van Lier (Switzerland)

Thank you Isehara: Final goodbye of session 2 with a bang (of taiko drums)

Learning to play taiko drums in Isehara
Learning to play taiko drums in Isehara

I woke up this morning at 7 AM. As usual, I took my clothes I had prepared the night before and went downstairs to greet my family. Afterwards, I took a shower, where I was surprised to see that there was no hot water. So an awkward moment arose as I had to ask my host sister to turn on the hot water. She came in to help while I was standing in the corner butt naked. After finally being able to take a shower and get dressed, I headed to the living room, where breakfast was waiting for me.

At 9 AM, the participants, including me, had our daily morning meeting. After the meeting we went to a room where a lot of taiko drums were spread around the room. A Japanese man greeted us and invited us to take seat next to a drum on tatami mat. He showed us how to use the drumsticks and taught us a very easy rhythm that we played together. And that was how our taiko lesson started. After a while we all got the hang of the piece we would play at the Arigato Event that would take place later that day. The taiko teacher taught us a few more songs that were more difficult, so difficult that I couldn’t do it properly. At 11.30 the taiko session was over and we moved on to the next activity, which was cooking.

We met up with many elderly people with cute aprons and were also asked to wear an apron and a bandana. Although it was a cooking class, we didn’t actually cook. We made our own wagashi, Japanese sweets, that are eaten during a tea ceremony. The chef demonstrated how to make two different sweets and we made them to the best of our ability. I thought it was easy at first because the chef made them without any effort but I was wrong. Mine turned out pretty bad. Some were so ugly that I couldn’t say that I was proud with what I had made. I wish to try it again in the future.

After we were done, the cute ladies in cute aprons prepared us curry that was delicious. We and the Japanese people sat down and ate our bellies full. We could eat our own wagashi as dessert, or we had the choice to keep them for later. After that we had our session wrap up. We talked about our favorite moments and wrote a review about World Campus. I also received a very official World Campus International Certificate of Completion, which I’m actually very happy about.

Later we had the rehearsal for the Arigato Event. Even though we had done it many times before, there were still some minor changes. I already knew what was going on so it was a bit repetitive. Finally, at 6 PM, it was time for the show our families had been waiting, and it was a great success!! The families brought food so we could have a potluck party afterwards. However, we also had our taiko performance after the potluck party. After that it was one last group picture and the day was over. Finally, at home another participant, Jules, joined my family for fireworks. A perfect finish for the day!

Sarah Lennaux (Belgium)