I finally met up with my JMSB friend that is also on exchange in Kansai Gaidai University. He has been here for a month now, arrived a bit before me. He lives in a Japanese family, but not with a homestay family, but rather because he met a Japanese girl in Canada and they started a relationship. My friend now lives in Nagoya with his girlfriend's family. Nagoya is a nice city, though touristically, there might not be that many things to see, to live it seems like a fine city. There are parks, temples and urban spaces. There are buildings that are so futuristic you feel projected in the future (pictures). THe people of Nagoya seemed much more friendly than Osaka and whenever we would ask for directions, people would bring out their best English to respond (that has never happened in Osaka yet!). They also have people distributing packs of tissues with advertisement in them. In one day we must have collected 10-11 packs. This does not seem to be so big in Osaka because I have not received a tissue-pack-ad in Osaka yet. Our first day we roamed in the city, we went to an arcade and I could witness my friend's developing skills in an video game called Pop & Music which is a game where you have to press on buttons at the right moment following a song... the game can be played up to 9 buttons! He always plays enjoy mode, and beside there was a Japanese girl in Expert mode making impossible moves with her two hands and 10 fingers to be able to following the exteremly fast-paced music. Later my friend told me that in Japan, everyone needs a way to disconect from their routine... Some people spends days on end in arcades and others spend their salaries in Pachinko machines (gambling). It was clear that to acheive that kind of ability on the machine you have to spend hours and hours playing.In the evening when we arrived in Komaki, the village where my friend lives, we stoped to buy some TakoYaki (Octopus balls) so I had something to offer to the family as a sign of good will. The house seems big for Japanese standards, with various rooms and 2 floors, a dining room with a separated kitchen. This very much ressembled a house in Canada, with the execption that the there were tatami map rooms (photos) and in the house there are 3 generations living under one roof. Possibly 4 in the near future? The oldest, a son, also a good friend that I met in Canada, has started working half a year ago and now lives to work and works to live in Shizuoka. I was happy to talk to him on the phone while I was there... I told him that both my Canadian friend and I would visit him in Shizuoka when we have free time. His mind seemed to be lost in a mountain of responsibilities. I think that the family is quite typical where the man of the house works late and goes to bed early, the wife takes care of the house, the children the guests. I appreciated the time I spent with them and I could get a small idea of what it is to be in a Japanese family. The dinner was excellent; there was sushi and Japanese fondue (shabu-shabu) and some good servings of beer and sake. By the end of the night I had spoken about my poor Japanese cooking skills, explained Quebec's particular political and cultural environment and answered many questions they had about Canada... all in Japanese. The sake helped. After a few card tricks, a few rounds of Buta no Shippo and one game played with cards with Japanese poetry, I went to in the tatami mat room in the futon, feeling that I had met the Japanese dream of a family.
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