Feb. 25 2007 - Family Matters

Sunday, Feb. 26 2007

Family matters

I have decided to move back to the dorms, but if I feel that things can only go better by going in another host family after discussing with the university administration tomorrow, I might move in another host family. The whole family seems to be ignoring me and having no interest what so ever. Their only interest is that I keep everything clean and that I don’t leave the lights on for nothing; that is something that they never fail to talk to me about. Otherwise, I have invited them to the aquarium and no one could make it and the night I came back they didn’t even ask me how it was. They just said welcome back and that was it. This is how it is now in my host family every evening: they say welcome back and they there is an awkward silence or they keep doing whatever they were and they never invite me in the living room or speak to me or even ask me how my day was. At first I did try to talk to them about my classes and show them magic tricks, but they didn’t seem very interested so now I have to be satisfied with just spending the evening in my room reading or using the internet when I seldom catch it from the neighbor. I am not having a nice homestay experience right now, but at least I am learning something about myself and Japan. All the other home stay stories seem to be very different from mine; families that want to do activities with the guest, that are genuinely interested in hosting someone from another country and making someone feel at home. Unfortunately I am not in that kind of family at all and I am not even practicing my Japanese so I have no choice to move from here.