Home Stay Blues
As I wrote recently, my junior high school will be hosting a group of junior high school students from California for one week near the end of March. The past couple weeks I have had to stay after school for a couple of long meetings concerning this exchange.

Although I was involved in some exchanges back in Oita, this is the first time I’ve been involved in the planning stages (as opposed to just showing up and helping to guide). I wish it didn’t bite into my personal time quite so much, but it is interesting to see how this works from the Japanese side.

For instance, all the kids who are coming from California sent over little forms containing important information about themselves, and a picture. Pictures are always included on any application form in Japan, but I guess we Americans don’t take it quite as seriously. Many of the photos, as you can probably imagine from junior high kids, were of poor quality, or the kids had hats on, or one girl just photo-copied her student ID and sent that as her picture. One of my Japanese colleagues was looking at the pictures with disgust and saying, “Look at this! Is this how they introduce themselves to us? This is just how Americans do things. Everything is so half-assed.” And then, remembering I was in the room, she suddenly turned and said, “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Another area of concern seems to be bringing candy to school. Apparently in the past some of the American kids brought candy and sodas to school for a snack (as we Americans are wont to do when we get hungry). In Japan absolutely no candy or sweets are allowed on school grounds, so one of the teachers was complaining about how Americans bring candy to Japanese schools. “In America we’re allowed to take snacks to school,” I said. “We eat them at snack time.”

“But this is Japan,” he answered.

I tried to explain that the American kids didn’t know the Japanese rules. Another teacher mentioned that the previous American Assistant English Teacher, the person who held my position before me, once even chewed gum at the school. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said

“If you don’t want to learn the rules of another country, then you shouldn’t come here,” the teacher said.

Another thing is all these long meetings. When I was in 11th grade my family hosted a Japanese exchange student for a week, the same length of time that these California kids are coming. As far as I can remember we just picked the Japanese student up from school. I don’t remember sitting through long meetings about what to do and not to do with him. But yesterday we had a two-hour meeting with all the students who are hosting American children, and their parents as well. I guess it is just the Japanese characteristic of making sure every little detail is ironed out, and things go smoothly.

The meeting went on forever. First someone gave the aforementioned teacher gave a speech about the importance of not letting these Americans bring candy to school. Then there were all sorts of questions, like, what do we do if the American kid gets sick. The answer given was basically, take them to the hospital just like you would do for your own kid, but it took a long time to say.

One area of contention was the plan for Friday morning on the last day of school. It is the closing ceremony for the junior high school, and it was requested that the American students just stay at their host families for the day. A couple of the women objected. “My husband and I both have to work. My daughter is going to be at school for the closing ceremony. Who is going to look after the American student?”

A couple different plans were presented. “You’re daughter can come straight home after school. The American will only be alone for a little bit. In the meantime, the American student can spend time with the grandparents.”

The objections persisted. “My parents won’t know what to do with an American student,” the mother said. “Couldn’t they just come to school for that day?”

“The closing ceremonies are a very important time,” one of the teachers answered. “We don’t want a bunch of Americans making noise and messing it up.”

“It will be good for the American students to spend time with the grandparents,” another teacher said. “They can learn about Japanese culture from them. That’s why they are coming to Japan after all.”

Also at issue was space. Not enough homes for all the incoming students. At one point they wanted to put someone in with me. A chaperone, not a student, but still. I mean I wouldn’t have minded all that much, but can you imagine someone coming all the way from California expecting to do a home stay with a Japanese family and then getting stuck in my apartment with me? I brought up the point that I only have bedding for one, but said if someone else could provide an extra futon it wouldn’t be a problem. I think in the end they found another spot for him, but I will definitely keep you updated if I do get stuck with some one.

That night I went out with a Canadian friend, and he laughed at my stories. He had a similar experience when a group of Canadian Junior High school students did a brief visit in his town. “I have never been so ashamed to be a Canadian,” he told me. “After seeing all the work my town put into hosting this exchange, and then to see the way the kids were so disrespectful, I just wanted to kill them. They were doing things that Japanese kid would never have done. Japanese kids would never have been that rude.”

The same might apply to Americans. Obviously I’ve never met these kids who are coming. I don’t know them from Adam (or Eve). But it’s not too hard to imagine, is it? May be that is why my town is so concerned about keeping them under control.