“Before coming to Japan, I knew very little about my host family. We gained some more information about them as the homestay portion of our program neared. After living with my host family, I believe the program picks the right host families for each Experimenter. A lot of the families have the same hobbies as their Experimenters. For example, a friend’s family shared hobbies including that they are both a part of the gaming and anime/manga communities. This also happened with my family since they are interested in the music arts, and play multiple instruments, including a violin, which is one of my signature instruments.
When meeting your host family for the first time, you feel a bit nervous, mainly with the way you introduce yourself. But I can assure you that they will be accepting and will try their best to make you feel like it is your home. After going with my host father to his house, I was surprised on how well things went in the first day. Everything was quite stable, and there was no type of problem beside the language barrier (which I was completely fine with because I grew up in a household where I struggled with Spanish in my family as a child). But if you are someone who struggles with language barriers, just remember that it is also hard for your host family.
The host family I went to was calming and reassuring. The best thing about the host family was how I learned more Hiragana as the days went by because everyone only spoke Japanese. My host family had two parents and one child. The best part of the homestay is my host sister who reminds me of myself when I was younger. The only difference is that I was an extremely hyper child, she is less hyper. My homestay experience was a great adventure!” –J
“I really am enjoying the atmosphere here in Japan. People are extremely friendly. I am actually in the northern island of Japan, Hokkaido, in the city of Otaru. The weather here is different from Tokyo; however, we are doing many activities with our respective host families, such as camping, barbecuing, and playing video games. I don’t want to leave this country. ” –Omar
“The host family is really nice. Tuesday will be our first group activity in Otaru. We will visit Futaba high school and have classes with local high school students. They are very enthusiastic and curious about us. I was a little jealous of Omar (shhh) when some Japanese girls asked him to have lunch together. The food is so much better than at my school, too. (Now I’m thinking about transferring.)” – Lily
