Sarah Groberg comments

I am currently doing a homestay experience in Osaka, and I am enjoying it so far, but the language barrier is quite an obstacle. I've been taking Japanese for three years, but I'm still nowhere near as fluent as I want to be, so conversations between me and my host mom are very short and basic, because she doesn't speak very much English. Sure, I have lots of things I could talk about, but I don't know how to articulate them without consulting a dictionary every two seconds.

The experience is definitely not for the faint of heart. I visited Japan three years prior as a volunteer, and there are still culture shocks for me, such as not being able to expose my shoulders. Cultural differences can be difficult to overcome, especially if you don't know what exactly it is you're doing wrong. Sometimes, you can't tell if your host mom isn't talking to you because she doesn't like you, or if she just doesn't have anything to say. I've felt like a complete idiot a couple of times just because I haven't been able to articulate things properly.

Home stay does not come without its challenges. I am a very shy, introverted person, so even in my native tongue, and especially if someone's taking me in, talking to others is quite an intimidating thing for me. All in all, I won't say it's a bad experience, but it's definitely not easy. No two experiences are the same, since each host family is different, has different expectations, etc.

Despite its hardships, I recommend home stay to anyone who wishes to pursue a career involving the place they're going to. You won't get an experience like this anywhere else. It's hard, but try to remember to not mistake familiarity for superiority, and if you do have a definite problem with your host family, try to talk it out with them as best as you can. As was mentioned above, you have to be flexible, and so do they.