A Jaunt through Japan: Homestay in Arida, Wakayama Prefecture

Rice paddies

View of Arida from the Tanakas' hillside farm.

My second homestay was in a more rural area where the people are predominantly farmers or fisherman, and the dynamic was radically different from what I saw in Obu. This homestay was both more interesting as well as more uncomfortable for me, and I think a lot of that probably has to do with the rural/urban divide laid on top of being with an unfamiliar family. There was a tendency among us Americans to compare the suburban family in Obu to a suburban American family, and likewise with this rural homestay, and I think to some extent, the comparison is very apt. In Obu, we drove around in a minivan and went to a big superstore to shop. Most of the families were younger with kids. In Arida, it like smalltown America in some ways—everyone knew each other, gossip flowed like wine, people were a little more open and gregarious and “earthy” if you will, and the town seemed to be mostly older people since the youth had all packed up and moved to the city.

I think I can illustrate what the difference is between Obu and Arida by discussing my first night there. Remember in Obu, when there were formal introductions and gift exchanges with the mayor and a TV crew? Not to brag, but we were kind of a big deal. You know what happened Arida? They led us to this little community center were we waited in a tatami room before we met our host families. Rob casually mentioned that we would be having dinner in the community center, then mysteriously had us line up in some predetermined order for going upstairs to the dining room. So we lined up, walked up the stairs and through the hall…and then into a banquet room filled with basically the whole town. Everyone important was there. The vice-mayor, all the principals and vice principals from the local schools, our host families, and a bunch of other people whose identity I never learned. More formal speeches, then we were presented to our host families and sat with them for the banquet that followed. Looking around, I could see that everyone who made a speech had a copy of a SEATING CHART to refer to. Now, in both Obu and Arida we were treated like local celebrities, but in Obu the host families didn’t really know each other, and everything was highly structured and formalized, hosted by the Obu International Association. In Arida, it genuinely felt like an entire community had come out to greet us.

Now, what did this mean in terms of setting the tone for the rest of my stay? Well, to be frank, it was a bit of a zoo and circus situation in which the host families had first row seats to watching the monkeys ride unicycles before we moved on to the next town. I suppose that’s only fair, though, since I’m now turning the tables and analyzing their behavior like a sociologist. =)

Here’s what it was like—my host family, let’s call them the Tanakas, were the most welcoming hosts you could ever wish for, and you could tell they genuinely wanted me to enjoy myself and be comfortable. The family make-up was the father and mother, both in their 60s I’d say, and the mother’s mother. They have two kids who are grown who live hours away and rarely visit. I want to try and describe my host father, since I interacted with him more than the other two. Hosting is clearly his gig, he does it every year, and the first thing he did when we got into the house was show me Facebook pictures of the last two people he hosted. He’s an older guy, but very spry and brown, I guess from working on the farm for most of his life (I actually noticed that more people in Arida were tanned than we’ve been seeing). He’s an easy-going type and laughs constantly. In fact, I’d venture to say he’s got a touch of the Most Embarrassing Dad In The World Syndrome in that he’s constantly repeating his stories and telling jokes that only he thinks are hilarious. He loves to refer to himself as “A Bad Boy” and plays up his laziness like it’s an old comfortable joke. I’m not sure how true it is, but he himself told me that while his mother-in-law and wife work on the farm all day, he usually just sleeps and eats and plays golf. Indeed, I think that’s the public image he’s comfortable with. He definitely enjoys the persona of Host that he can take on when foreign visitors come, and though his grasp of English grammar is weak he uses his words loudly and frequently and wildly gesticulated. I think he enjoys the attention and power of being the “interpreter.” In contrast, his wife—whom I really liked!—is quiet in public. The first night I met her I thought she was very severe, but turns out that is just her public face. At home, she laughs and jokes and chats lightly with host dad all the time. That said, she stayed home for almost all of the outings we had.

Mrs. Tanaka going about her morning in the kitchen

In contrast my host father—along with several other host dads—followed the teachers around the next day as we did our visit to city hall and two local schools. Whatever we were doing, you could always turn and see a few of the host dads laughing with each other and snapping pictures of us. They seemed to be having a grand old time, and I guess if they’re retired we would seem like an exciting change. They most definitely traded stories of us. I know this because since I can understand at least a little Japanese, I got the general gist of most of what the dad said in front of me. For instance, I heard the story of how Brad (another educator) was deathly sick the first night and his host mother offered him a banana but he wouldn’t take it three times over the course of the day, once to my host mother, and twice to other host dads. I know you’re thinking there’s more to this story, but nope, that’s the whole thing. Host dad also talked non-stop about me, unfortunately, indicating imminent full-blown Embarrassing Dad Disease. The day after he took me out for karaoke, he opened almost every conversation he had with a description of how I sang two Chinese songs and one Japanese one, isn’t that amazing? I got the playback on how I wrote an incredibly difficult kanji during calligraphy class, and when we met his daughter and her boyfriend (yes, I was an excuse to extort a visit from her all the way from Osaka), he actually pulled his camera out and began showing them pictures of me practicing a hit in Kendo club! I do understand where all this is coming from, and I’ll admit that Americans would probably do the same thing—behind their back, that is. I think what made it so uncomfortable is that it was playing out right in front of me.

One of the things we did was work clearing the weeds out of a rice paddy with 5th graders from the school. No pictures of me doing it because my host dad actually took a nap in his car and didn't wake up in time to take pictures, haha.

We also watched some of the local high school clubs. Minoshima High School is actually nationally ranked in several sports, so their sports clubs are also very high caliber. This is their club sumo practice.

I guess any time you travel to another place, you will feel “other” no matter what. And in a homestay situation, everything will inevitably be a little artificial—I mean, what do you really know about this foreign person except: “This is Karen, she speaks Chinese. Her Japanese is excellent, and she has lived all over the United States. She’s thankfully not a vegetarian and she loves spicy food, isn’t that great?” I think that any encounter between two cultures is necessarily somewhat uncomfortable, and if you really want to learn about other people you kind of just have to embrace the discomfort. Every year that I host a Chinese teacher, I appreciate and understand this that much more. Seeing what it’s like from the other side (being the visitor instead of the host) only clarifies my understanding that it’s this uncomfortable feeling that is actually at the heart of traveling and exploring.

In conclusion—I had a valuable experience in Arida. Do I want to go back? Not so much. But I’m grateful to my host family for opening their home to me and showing me their world. In my time there, I visited a local karaoke bar, went to Adventure World to see the pandas, checked out the local vacation getaway beach, and worked in a rice paddy with 5^th graders. I must say that Wakayama is a very beautiful place and the mikan (mandarin oranges) are indeed delicious. You know I snatched up a bottle of that Arida mikan wine to take home. Slurp!