I did 6 months of home stay the first time I was in Japan, right before and during the pandemic. It was quite good, the family was welcoming and very used to taking in students, in fact when I joined they had 3 other students also living there. This of course changed during the pandemic, however.
Anyhow, I had no major issues, they were quite lax and allowed me to do kind of whatever as long as I told them before and didn’t bring back any girls. They also lived on the Yamanote line which was really convenient. Would recommend it to others as well, although I understand that your mileage may vary depending on the family.
Did 3 chill homestays when I first came to Japan, all of which were with older couples who’s children had moved out. Had 1 not so great homestay, in which the family was part of a cult and tried to get me to sign up.
Excellent! I feel so lucky to have picked my homestay family.
I stayed with them for a month, and we stayed in touch during corona while I waited to move back. I usually see them once a week for dinner and go on day trips/shopping trips with my host Mum regularly. They’re empty nesters and have basically adopted me!
Had a 1 week homestay in Kanazawa as a pioneer program for my school before they increased it to a month. Amazing people and I still visit them from time to time. My host mother has driven me around and even let me stay in her friend’s empty apartment the last time I visited, and she told me the location of her spare key to the house if I ever visit. She’s hosted almost hundreds of students and every year people come back with their families just to see her.
Fort time in Japan was a program organized by my university, 10 weeks including 3 weeks JR Pass to different cities across Japan, always in homestay, stayed with 6 families total and had a great experience.
Because of that I decided to do homestay during my working holiday visa. Stayed with a family for about 10 months. There was other foreigners staying with the family. Generally really good experience, the family helped me open a bank account and get my alien card at the city hall (was in 2011, just before they made change to the card in 2012).
The only negative thing I can remember was to be told that I broke a rule when I did not even know about it. I had a friend who lived not too far and once I invited her come see me, we went to my room to talk then when she left, my host mother was back home, so I introduced my friend, then when she left, my host mother told me it is not ok to bring a friend, that it’s late and privacy of the family… I know it is generally the idea you have of Japanese people/culture, but other people also had people over, like one day one of the other guy who stayed with the family during my year there came down to the kitchen in the morning with his girlfriend and I did not hear anyone say anything about it, so I wrongly assumed that me inviting my friend to talk for a bit would not be that much of a problem.
Same as what I wrote in the other thread.
One of my host families went to Disneyland and left me outside all day in the cold with no where to go and nothing to do. They didn’t trust me to be in the house by myself so I didn’t have a key.
I went to the convenience store down the road to use the payphone to call my family. 30 mins later I got back and my host family was just gone. No car and front door was locked. They didn’t even tell me they were going to Disneyland. So I waited, thinking they’d be home soon.
They all got home at 10pm. When I complained that they should have at least told me, they just brushed it off because I wasn’t home to tell…
I had 4 host families and only 1 was like that. It sucked, but it had an end date.
Funnily enough, I bumped into my old host brother from that family years ago. He seemed so happy to see me even though I had terrible memories of his house.
I was 15. lol It was 2004.
Mine was great. I lived with couple whose children were grown and had moved out, so they had extra space. Two of the absolute nicest people I have ever met.
Nice place to live, good food, and definitely helped my Japanese get better.
They also let me stay there quite often after I left, both when I visiting Japan or when I lived elsewhere in Japan and came to Tokyo for the weekend.
Sadly otousan passed away a few years ago, but I was able to go to the funeral. Still stay in touch with okaasan and visit occasionally.
I stayed with an older couple whose children had moved out. The wife’s brother worked as a coordinator for the exchange program, and they had lots of exchange students stay with them. They were nice people and I generally had no issues with them. The husband was working in another town and came home on the weekends, and the wife worked second shift at a supermarket, so I really hardly ever saw them. I would come home from school, walk the dog and do whatever housework I could to help out, heat up and eat the food that the mom left for me, study, and go to bed before she even got home.
I really only had an issue with the program coordinator, and it was such a weird issue. I injured my eye and needed to see a doctor. I had the money to pay for medical care, but for some reason I could not convince this coordinator or my host family to take me to the doctor. (I think my host family was sympathetic to my pain, but their thing was “if [coordinator] says no, we can’t do it.”) If I hadn’t been, you know, a teenager in a foreign country, I probably could have figured it out myself, but at the time I was in pain and scared and really needed an adult to help. I even called my parents, who called both the exchange organization and the coordinator, saying they would pay the costs, just please take our daughter to a doctor, and they said oh yes, of course we will, no problem, but did nothing. In the end, the mother of one of my classmates took me to a clinic and paid for the visit, and refused repayment. I had to have my eye bandaged for a few weeks, and went back for several follow up visits, but I told my host family that the school nurse had put the bandages on. Right before I went home, my host mother was talking about that to someone at the school, and they said, oh, that wasn’t a nurse, so-and-so’s mom took her to the hospital. Holy hell, they were so mad at me! To this day, I have no idea why they were so against taking me to the doctor. The only reason I could come up with was that they didn’t want to get saddled with the cost, but I literally had the cash in my hands, begging them for help.
Maybe 5 years after that, I came back to Japan on the JET program and was placed in the same town. I did not contact my former host family, but they heard through the grape vine that I was there and tried to contact me through the school where I worked. Honestly I don’t think they were bad people, but that experience left such a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s been 20 years and I never contacted them. This fact really annoys my husband, who thinks I should let bygones be bygones and after all they did let me stay and fed me for a few months, so I should at least express my gratitude. But I can’t really get over how scared and alone I felt when I thought I was losing my sight in one eye and was in horrible pain day after day, and they couldn’t be bothered to help.
Did homestay in 2000 and I’m still here in 2023. Basically the homestay was so good it tricked a young me in to thinking Japan is perfect in every way
Did 4 homestays in total.
The first one was decent. But they were very religious christians (the “You can’t use the bidet function of the TOTO, because that can give you pleasure” (SIC!) type of christians), so -10 points to Gryffindor. The host mother was a real HMILF tho, literally one of the hottest women I’ve seen in Japan, so – -5 points, I guess.
The second one was awful. Given all my host mother put me through, I genuinely hope she loses all her life points: the world will be a better place without that witch.
The third one I almost died. They were the nicest family out of the four, but I almost died due to their negligence.
The fourth one were lazy money grabbers. Not particularly good nor bad, but Jesus did they love to squeeze as many yen as possible out of me (and they were LOADED!). One of my goals in life is for me and my kids to never become like them. Also, they never cleaned their house (I guess they didn’t want to spend money on cleaning products), and their toilet stank so badly I couldn’t sleep properly.
I’ve also done homestays in the US, Canada, Australia and Germany for a grand total of 9 homastay (including the ones in Japan). The ones in Japan have been BY FAR the worst, to the point that I’m never going to do a homestay again, not even if they paid my weight in gold (the other ones were actually good, with the two homestays I did in the US being absolutely amazing).
(1/3) Alright, time to write the novel.
I came to Japan for the first time in 2005 at age 17 after graduating from high school as a one year program. I was placed in Okayama Prefecture with a host family who I was going to stay with for about 6 months. After that, I was going to move to another family (the family of the best friend of the oldest daughter of the first family) and ultimately a third family. The experience with the first family was pretty good overall, but I had a difficult time learning Japanese because both parents were deaf and used sign language and reading lips (mouth movements had to be very exaggerated for this to work) to communicate. I spoke very little Japanese when I arrived, so I was only really able to communicate with the three daughters, who would then communicate what I needed to the parents. The family refused to help me get a cell phone for reasons I don’t remember, so when it came to things like needing to be picked up from the station, I needed to call home and be able to reach one of the daughters, which was sometimes difficult because all three were in junior high and high school, so they were out doing their own thing. I remember being stuck in downtown Okayama once for hours because I couldn’t get a hold of anyone and being stalked by a creepy man from Okayama Station to a game centre and back.
In terms of school, I was placed at a very well respected school in the area where the oldest daughter also went. I was put in the school’s international stream home room class, which I suppose meant that the students in it were interested in English and foreign cultures. A lot of students were really kind and friendly. They tried to speak English with me and teach me some Japanese, but I remember I was learning a lot from TV dramas and then getting scolded for my impolite Japanese. The school’s version of Japanese lessons was to have me go to a tiny storage room a few times a week with a very disinterested teacher who I didn’t know. This teacher would bring random materials like hiragana worksheets, flash cards, etc. There was no semblance of a curriculum, and outside of this, I was simply placed in regular classes which I couldn’t follow. There was also little effort to communicate important school matters to me. A few weeks into school, my bike which I used to get from the closest station to the school was impounded because it lacked a sticker that indicated that it belonged to a student of the school. I had to pay out of pocket to get it back and it took weeks. Another time, I got an angry call from my exchange program coordinator asking why I was failing all of my tests at school. When I told her that I couldn’t read anything, she said that all I had to do was write my name on the test and then it back in to get full credit. No one had bothered to tell me this.
On the topic of coordinators, my lovely lady would call once a month to chat with my host family first, then list all the things I was doing wrong to me. I remember she would never say anything good, just list all the ways my school and family thought I was a fuck up. She would then demand me to tell her what I was going to do to fix all of these problems. She would never offer any sympathy or suggestions, just sit there in silence on the other end waiting for me to magically come up with solutions to issues I hadn’t known existed until that point. She also always seemed very annoyed to have to be doing this, so I never felt like I was really heard or that she actually wanted to help me. I used to dread those calls.
After finishing the first homestay, which despite its few problems was actually quite nice overall, I moved to the second family in January 2006. This was the family of my first family’s oldest daughter’s best friend. The two of them were in the same home room at school (the international program class). I remember my first family’s oldest daughter was the class president and kind of queen bee type. Nice in private, but would practically ignore me at school unless she wanted to show off that she was hosting the foreign girl. The second family had a nice vibe when I initially arrived, though I got the sense pretty quickly that they were mostly doing this for their daughter. That wasn’t a huge issue, though, and things were pretty much fine until they suddenly weren’t.
One day in probably around mid-February, I was in my home room class and suddenly my first host sister, the queen bee class president, was up at the front with everyone else just staring at me. She then goes into this speech about how disappointed everyone was in me for not advancing further in Japanese and using too much English. I don’t even remember most of what they said, I’m sure I just shut down in that moment. Next thing I knew, I’m whisked away to some meeting room where my coordinator and the regional manager of the exchange company are. The regional manager who I’ve never met makes a big show out of telling everyone how he never has to come down to a school to sort these issues out and how it meant that the situation was very serious. Finally, they tell me that my current host family is kicking me out and that I need to choose right then and there whether I’ll stay in Japan under the condition that I find a new host family to take me in, or I go home. I was completely blindsided by the fact that I was being kicked out and asked why. They refused to tell me. I was so overwhelmed and angry after months of feeling like I wasn’t really being welcomed by the school that I just agreed to leave. I’d already had thoughts of quitting the program in the months leading up to it, and with everything that had just happened, I was so overwhelmed that I said I’d go.
I am currently living with a home stay family, and I adore them! I first stayed with them in October of last year, but I had to leave early because I got extremely ill. They were incredibly kind and patient with me, and welcomed me back to finish my program this summer. I have been teaching myself Japanese, but have never taken a class so my vocabulary was very limited. My host mom had similar English to my Japanese proficiency, and we learn so much from each other! There are three children in the family, all of whom were also welcoming toward me. I didn’t expect my host family to go so above and beyond for me—giving me rides around town, catering to my food preferences, teaching me about culture and history in Japan. They still allowed me to have plenty of time to myself and I have a small private bedroom. They’ve also hosted students with no Japanese knowledge, and those students were also beyond thrilled to have stayed with them. I can’t speak highly enough of them! Bridging the communication gap is easy with apps like VoiceTra and DeepL. I appreciated that they told me very explicitly how laundry, bathing, and eating schedules would work. The hardest part was adjusting to sleeping on a tatami/futon arrangement, but they gave me extra squishmallows! I will always make it a point to come back and visit them when I’m in Japan.
I did a 1 year student exchange and lived with 4 different families while attending a school there, back in 2008-2009. It was the greatest experience I ever had and well, I’m glad to be back in the country.
There was a point where I thought I had to move back to a previous family, so I asked all my school friends if anyone would be willing to take me. Someone did agree but then I learned the entire thing was a misunderstanding after like a month of living with them and then I was sent back to my previous home. The last home I was with was my favorite even though me being a teenager I kinda had some arguments here and there. But I really felt a part of their family. And the friends I made were so unbelievably kind.
One of the best years of my life.
My experience was fantastic. I was 20 years old and my host parents were empty nesters. Before I arrived I was disappointed that I wouldn’t have any host siblings to bond with, but it actually worked out in my favor. My host parents knew how college kids are and gave me a lot of privacy and freedom. My curfew was at 1 am and I was allowed to hang out and go to the izakaya and karaoke with my friends every weekend. A lot of students in my program had young host families with ES and JHS aged children, so they had to be home early and do a lot of family stuff on weekends. I still did a lot with my host parents, but we’d go out to dinner or to the bar, take a trip to the city, go shopping, etc. Much more my style at 20 than playing with children.
My Japanese was already pretty advanced at the time so we didn’t have communication problems. They’re just really cool, chill people. I’m still in touch with them, 17 years later. My husband, daughter and I went to visit them last GW.
I had a good experience. Stayed with a host family the first time I ever came to Japan in college. They were a fairly wealthy (I think) young working family in a modern apartment with young kids. They gave me a lot of freedom and pretty much let me do what I liked as long as I told them ahead of time that I wouldn’t need dinner etc. They took me camping with them once.
I think I may have pissed off the mom a few times though by not fully cleaning my plate and being a picky eater. It’s a little hard because Japan is so indirect that I never really felt like I knew if they truly liked me or not. We never had any problems and they were always polite but we haven’t kept in touch that often afterwards beyond meeting for dinner once every 2 years or so.
I heard horror stories from other kids who were in my same program of host families who immediately hit them with curfew rules etc. as soon as they moved in. I was glad I didn’t have to deal with that.
Whoa. That sounds like one of those horrifying descriptions of kids being left in hot cars. I’m glad you survived and got out of there. Did they take you to the doctor when that happened?
It’s an odd (and very generous) perspective to describe the people who almost killed you via hyperthermia as the nicest.
16 comments
I did 6 months of home stay the first time I was in Japan, right before and during the pandemic. It was quite good, the family was welcoming and very used to taking in students, in fact when I joined they had 3 other students also living there. This of course changed during the pandemic, however.
Anyhow, I had no major issues, they were quite lax and allowed me to do kind of whatever as long as I told them before and didn’t bring back any girls. They also lived on the Yamanote line which was really convenient. Would recommend it to others as well, although I understand that your mileage may vary depending on the family.
Did 3 chill homestays when I first came to Japan, all of which were with older couples who’s children had moved out. Had 1 not so great homestay, in which the family was part of a cult and tried to get me to sign up.
Excellent! I feel so lucky to have picked my homestay family.
I stayed with them for a month, and we stayed in touch during corona while I waited to move back. I usually see them once a week for dinner and go on day trips/shopping trips with my host Mum regularly. They’re empty nesters and have basically adopted me!
Had a 1 week homestay in Kanazawa as a pioneer program for my school before they increased it to a month. Amazing people and I still visit them from time to time. My host mother has driven me around and even let me stay in her friend’s empty apartment the last time I visited, and she told me the location of her spare key to the house if I ever visit. She’s hosted almost hundreds of students and every year people come back with their families just to see her.
Fort time in Japan was a program organized by my university, 10 weeks including 3 weeks JR Pass to different cities across Japan, always in homestay, stayed with 6 families total and had a great experience.
Because of that I decided to do homestay during my working holiday visa. Stayed with a family for about 10 months. There was other foreigners staying with the family. Generally really good experience, the family helped me open a bank account and get my alien card at the city hall (was in 2011, just before they made change to the card in 2012).
The only negative thing I can remember was to be told that I broke a rule when I did not even know about it. I had a friend who lived not too far and once I invited her come see me, we went to my room to talk then when she left, my host mother was back home, so I introduced my friend, then when she left, my host mother told me it is not ok to bring a friend, that it’s late and privacy of the family… I know it is generally the idea you have of Japanese people/culture, but other people also had people over, like one day one of the other guy who stayed with the family during my year there came down to the kitchen in the morning with his girlfriend and I did not hear anyone say anything about it, so I wrongly assumed that me inviting my friend to talk for a bit would not be that much of a problem.
Same as what I wrote in the other thread.
One of my host families went to Disneyland and left me outside all day in the cold with no where to go and nothing to do. They didn’t trust me to be in the house by myself so I didn’t have a key.
I went to the convenience store down the road to use the payphone to call my family. 30 mins later I got back and my host family was just gone. No car and front door was locked. They didn’t even tell me they were going to Disneyland. So I waited, thinking they’d be home soon.
They all got home at 10pm.
When I complained that they should have at least told me, they just brushed it off because I wasn’t home to tell…
I had 4 host families and only 1 was like that. It sucked, but it had an end date.
Funnily enough, I bumped into my old host brother from that family years ago. He seemed so happy to see me even though I had terrible memories of his house.
I was 15. lol It was 2004.
Mine was great. I lived with couple whose children were grown and had moved out, so they had extra space. Two of the absolute nicest people I have ever met.
Nice place to live, good food, and definitely helped my Japanese get better.
They also let me stay there quite often after I left, both when I visiting Japan or when I lived elsewhere in Japan and came to Tokyo for the weekend.
Sadly otousan passed away a few years ago, but I was able to go to the funeral. Still stay in touch with okaasan and visit occasionally.
I stayed with an older couple whose children had moved out. The wife’s brother worked as a coordinator for the exchange program, and they had lots of exchange students stay with them. They were nice people and I generally had no issues with them. The husband was working in another town and came home on the weekends, and the wife worked second shift at a supermarket, so I really hardly ever saw them. I would come home from school, walk the dog and do whatever housework I could to help out, heat up and eat the food that the mom left for me, study, and go to bed before she even got home.
I really only had an issue with the program coordinator, and it was such a weird issue. I injured my eye and needed to see a doctor. I had the money to pay for medical care, but for some reason I could not convince this coordinator or my host family to take me to the doctor. (I think my host family was sympathetic to my pain, but their thing was “if [coordinator] says no, we can’t do it.”) If I hadn’t been, you know, a teenager in a foreign country, I probably could have figured it out myself, but at the time I was in pain and scared and really needed an adult to help. I even called my parents, who called both the exchange organization and the coordinator, saying they would pay the costs, just please take our daughter to a doctor, and they said oh yes, of course we will, no problem, but did nothing. In the end, the mother of one of my classmates took me to a clinic and paid for the visit, and refused repayment. I had to have my eye bandaged for a few weeks, and went back for several follow up visits, but I told my host family that the school nurse had put the bandages on. Right before I went home, my host mother was talking about that to someone at the school, and they said, oh, that wasn’t a nurse, so-and-so’s mom took her to the hospital. Holy hell, they were so mad at me! To this day, I have no idea why they were so against taking me to the doctor. The only reason I could come up with was that they didn’t want to get saddled with the cost, but I literally had the cash in my hands, begging them for help.
Maybe 5 years after that, I came back to Japan on the JET program and was placed in the same town. I did not contact my former host family, but they heard through the grape vine that I was there and tried to contact me through the school where I worked. Honestly I don’t think they were bad people, but that experience left such a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s been 20 years and I never contacted them. This fact really annoys my husband, who thinks I should let bygones be bygones and after all they did let me stay and fed me for a few months, so I should at least express my gratitude. But I can’t really get over how scared and alone I felt when I thought I was losing my sight in one eye and was in horrible pain day after day, and they couldn’t be bothered to help.
Did homestay in 2000 and I’m still here in 2023. Basically the homestay was so good it tricked a young me in to thinking Japan is perfect in every way
Did 4 homestays in total.
The first one was decent. But they were very religious christians (the “You can’t use the bidet function of the TOTO, because that can give you pleasure” (SIC!) type of christians), so -10 points to Gryffindor.
The host mother was a real HMILF tho, literally one of the hottest women I’ve seen in Japan, so – -5 points, I guess.
The second one was awful. Given all my host mother put me through, I genuinely hope she loses all her life points: the world will be a better place without that witch.
The third one I almost died. They were the nicest family out of the four, but I almost died due to their negligence.
The fourth one were lazy money grabbers.
Not particularly good nor bad, but Jesus did they love to squeeze as many yen as possible out of me (and they were LOADED!).
One of my goals in life is for me and my kids to never become like them.
Also, they never cleaned their house (I guess they didn’t want to spend money on cleaning products), and their toilet stank so badly I couldn’t sleep properly.
I’ve also done homestays in the US, Canada, Australia and Germany for a grand total of 9 homastay (including the ones in Japan). The ones in Japan have been BY FAR the worst, to the point that I’m never going to do a homestay again, not even if they paid my weight in gold (the other ones were actually good, with the two homestays I did in the US being absolutely amazing).
(1/3) Alright, time to write the novel.
I came to Japan for the first time in 2005 at age 17 after graduating from high school as a one year program. I was placed in Okayama Prefecture with a host family who I was going to stay with for about 6 months. After that, I was going to move to another family (the family of the best friend of the oldest daughter of the first family) and ultimately a third family. The experience with the first family was pretty good overall, but I had a difficult time learning Japanese because both parents were deaf and used sign language and reading lips (mouth movements had to be very exaggerated for this to work) to communicate. I spoke very little Japanese when I arrived, so I was only really able to communicate with the three daughters, who would then communicate what I needed to the parents. The family refused to help me get a cell phone for reasons I don’t remember, so when it came to things like needing to be picked up from the station, I needed to call home and be able to reach one of the daughters, which was sometimes difficult because all three were in junior high and high school, so they were out doing their own thing. I remember being stuck in downtown Okayama once for hours because I couldn’t get a hold of anyone and being stalked by a creepy man from Okayama Station to a game centre and back.
In terms of school, I was placed at a very well respected school in the area where the oldest daughter also went. I was put in the school’s international stream home room class, which I suppose meant that the students in it were interested in English and foreign cultures. A lot of students were really kind and friendly. They tried to speak English with me and teach me some Japanese, but I remember I was learning a lot from TV dramas and then getting scolded for my impolite Japanese. The school’s version of Japanese lessons was to have me go to a tiny storage room a few times a week with a very disinterested teacher who I didn’t know. This teacher would bring random materials like hiragana worksheets, flash cards, etc. There was no semblance of a curriculum, and outside of this, I was simply placed in regular classes which I couldn’t follow. There was also little effort to communicate important school matters to me. A few weeks into school, my bike which I used to get from the closest station to the school was impounded because it lacked a sticker that indicated that it belonged to a student of the school. I had to pay out of pocket to get it back and it took weeks. Another time, I got an angry call from my exchange program coordinator asking why I was failing all of my tests at school. When I told her that I couldn’t read anything, she said that all I had to do was write my name on the test and then it back in to get full credit. No one had bothered to tell me this.
On the topic of coordinators, my lovely lady would call once a month to chat with my host family first, then list all the things I was doing wrong to me. I remember she would never say anything good, just list all the ways my school and family thought I was a fuck up. She would then demand me to tell her what I was going to do to fix all of these problems. She would never offer any sympathy or suggestions, just sit there in silence on the other end waiting for me to magically come up with solutions to issues I hadn’t known existed until that point. She also always seemed very annoyed to have to be doing this, so I never felt like I was really heard or that she actually wanted to help me. I used to dread those calls.
After finishing the first homestay, which despite its few problems was actually quite nice overall, I moved to the second family in January 2006. This was the family of my first family’s oldest daughter’s best friend. The two of them were in the same home room at school (the international program class). I remember my first family’s oldest daughter was the class president and kind of queen bee type. Nice in private, but would practically ignore me at school unless she wanted to show off that she was hosting the foreign girl. The second family had a nice vibe when I initially arrived, though I got the sense pretty quickly that they were mostly doing this for their daughter. That wasn’t a huge issue, though, and things were pretty much fine until they suddenly weren’t.
One day in probably around mid-February, I was in my home room class and suddenly my first host sister, the queen bee class president, was up at the front with everyone else just staring at me. She then goes into this speech about how disappointed everyone was in me for not advancing further in Japanese and using too much English. I don’t even remember most of what they said, I’m sure I just shut down in that moment. Next thing I knew, I’m whisked away to some meeting room where my coordinator and the regional manager of the exchange company are. The regional manager who I’ve never met makes a big show out of telling everyone how he never has to come down to a school to sort these issues out and how it meant that the situation was very serious. Finally, they tell me that my current host family is kicking me out and that I need to choose right then and there whether I’ll stay in Japan under the condition that I find a new host family to take me in, or I go home. I was completely blindsided by the fact that I was being kicked out and asked why. They refused to tell me. I was so overwhelmed and angry after months of feeling like I wasn’t really being welcomed by the school that I just agreed to leave. I’d already had thoughts of quitting the program in the months leading up to it, and with everything that had just happened, I was so overwhelmed that I said I’d go.
I am currently living with a home stay family, and I adore them! I first stayed with them in October of last year, but I had to leave early because I got extremely ill. They were incredibly kind and patient with me, and welcomed me back to finish my program this summer. I have been teaching myself Japanese, but have never taken a class so my vocabulary was very limited. My host mom had similar English to my Japanese proficiency, and we learn so much from each other! There are three children in the family, all of whom were also welcoming toward me. I didn’t expect my host family to go so above and beyond for me—giving me rides around town, catering to my food preferences, teaching me about culture and history in Japan. They still allowed me to have plenty of time to myself and I have a small private bedroom. They’ve also hosted students with no Japanese knowledge, and those students were also beyond thrilled to have stayed with them. I can’t speak highly enough of them! Bridging the communication gap is easy with apps like VoiceTra and DeepL. I appreciated that they told me very explicitly how laundry, bathing, and eating schedules would work. The hardest part was adjusting to sleeping on a tatami/futon arrangement, but they gave me extra squishmallows! I will always make it a point to come back and visit them when I’m in Japan.
I did a 1 year student exchange and lived with 4 different families while attending a school there, back in 2008-2009. It was the greatest experience I ever had and well, I’m glad to be back in the country.
There was a point where I thought I had to move back to a previous family, so I asked all my school friends if anyone would be willing to take me. Someone did agree but then I learned the entire thing was a misunderstanding after like a month of living with them and then I was sent back to my previous home. The last home I was with was my favorite even though me being a teenager I kinda had some arguments here and there. But I really felt a part of their family. And the friends I made were so unbelievably kind.
One of the best years of my life.
My experience was fantastic. I was 20 years old and my host parents were empty nesters. Before I arrived I was disappointed that I wouldn’t have any host siblings to bond with, but it actually worked out in my favor. My host parents knew how college kids are and gave me a lot of privacy and freedom. My curfew was at 1 am and I was allowed to hang out and go to the izakaya and karaoke with my friends every weekend. A lot of students in my program had young host families with ES and JHS aged children, so they had to be home early and do a lot of family stuff on weekends. I still did a lot with my host parents, but we’d go out to dinner or to the bar, take a trip to the city, go shopping, etc. Much more my style at 20 than playing with children.
My Japanese was already pretty advanced at the time so we didn’t have communication problems. They’re just really cool, chill people. I’m still in touch with them, 17 years later. My husband, daughter and I went to visit them last GW.
I had a good experience. Stayed with a host family the first time I ever came to Japan in college. They were a fairly wealthy (I think) young working family in a modern apartment with young kids. They gave me a lot of freedom and pretty much let me do what I liked as long as I told them ahead of time that I wouldn’t need dinner etc. They took me camping with them once.
I think I may have pissed off the mom a few times though by not fully cleaning my plate and being a picky eater. It’s a little hard because Japan is so indirect that I never really felt like I knew if they truly liked me or not. We never had any problems and they were always polite but we haven’t kept in touch that often afterwards beyond meeting for dinner once every 2 years or so.
I heard horror stories from other kids who were in my same program of host families who immediately hit them with curfew rules etc. as soon as they moved in. I was glad I didn’t have to deal with that.
Whoa. That sounds like one of those horrifying descriptions of kids being left in hot cars. I’m glad you survived and got out of there. Did they take you to the doctor when that happened?
It’s an odd (and very generous) perspective to describe the people who almost killed you via hyperthermia as the nicest.