I don't want to get into too much detail, but at the end of the day, I think I made mistakes; my host family also made mistakes; and what ultimately precipitated our split is the enormous language and cultural barrier between us. Japanese people especially are known to have a penchant for ambiguity and equivocality. I was not too skilled at reading between the lines of communication.
That doesn't stop this summer from being an amazing experience though! I do like my new host family. I've learned the streets around my new host house pretty quickly, and I've adapted to it. The new place is closer to Shibuya, which the SANCers frequently congregate at to begin our nightly adventures. Furthermore, the house is closer to the train station, and as a result, my daily commute to school is significantly shortened. I feel great.
Only a week left though! I will ganbatte next week to make the most out of my remaining time here. But before that, I want to elaborate on some activities that took place in the past 1.5 week.
Sun Academy organized a trip to visit Nihon TV station. We took a tour on the broadcasting floor and even saw news production live! The floor was pretty cool, but let me cut to the chase. The live news production was the sweet part. A famous Japanese soccer player, Matsuda, died that day, and so the news team was shooting a clip to cover this story. Ok, I'm not going to lie. I was almost thinking of rushing the stage with a couple of other students to get ourselves on TV, but that would ruin everything. Haha.
After the tour, we interviewed Masi Oka and Okuda-san. Masi Oka, if you did not know, is the Japanese guy on the popular TV series Hero. I really didn't know much about him, but the man has a 3-page Wikipedia entry all to himself. That's a pretty telling indicator of career success, haha. Wink! Okuda-san is the producer of Spirited Away, one of the best Japanese anime movies ever. It's what got me interested in Japanese beyond the superficial level during my first year of studying it. Needless to say, I was very very impressed. Below is a group picture.
Other than that, Seto Sensei came! He is the second year Japanese language instructor at Yale. The man is hilarious, and he was nice to invite us out to a delicious Taiwanese restaurant. I've been craving Chinese food for a while, and Seto Sensei came to the rescue and relieved me. Thank you Seto sensei! Below is another group picture.
2 comments:
Sounds like the TV "field trip" and Seto sensei's visit went phenomenally! Good luck with the new host family, and your precious little remaining time at Sun.
Email me if the host family issue is something you'd like to give the Light office feedback on. If no, no worries.
Hey Alan, sorry for the late reply. There is nothing much to feed back in terms of the home stay. Long story short, I violated a minor rule(bringing a friend home), and the son of the family overreacted. There was minor violence(not involving myself), but the situation ended in a controlled manner. My only feed back is that Light can maybe push for a better homestay agency. JTB, which was contracted by Sun, had done a horrible job this summer with homestay families. I was definitely not the only one with problem as you will find out from some other students about their issues and hardships this summer dealing homestay.
Overall, it was a fantastic experience, and my second homestay family was as good as one can hope for. I recently submitted my final blog post, and I believe I am done with all the Light requirements. Let me know if I have anything left.
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