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My dream throughout high school was to go to college and spend study abroad in Japan. Originally I had hoped to stay for a whole year, but I only stayed for six months. However, if I had stayed longer, I think I would have had a hard time finishing up my graduation requirements since I took several courses outside my major. Anyway, I spent my six months in Hikone, a smallish city in rural Japan a couple hours from Kyoto by train. For the first few weeks, I stayed in the dormitory, first with a Japanese student from the temporary end-of-summer English program and then on my own. Classes started just a few days into the semester, following a day of orientation and placement tests. Three weeks in, my new host family came to pick me up.
I was one of only five students out of thirty who chose to live with host families that semester. At first I thought there would be more of us, but the home stay coordinator warned us all that living with a host family would be difficult due to the extra travel and language immersion it would involve. As she spoke, I could actually see some of my classmates begin to look a bit terrified, so really it should not have been a surprise that the numbers dwindled. Only about eight people showed up to hear about the home stay opportunity in the first place.
Out of the five students staying with families, I lived the farthest away. The Japan Center for Michigan Universities (JCMU) is right on the shore of Lake BIwa, Japan's largest lake. To get home from school, I would ride my school-issued bike along the shore, into the downtown, and all the way to the train station. This ride took about twenty minutes if I pedaled my hardest. After that I parked my bike in the train station bike shelter where all the home stay students had a paid pass, and then got on a train to Tagataishamae (In Front of Taga Shrine), a suburb of Hikone. The train ride required switching trains once, then a short walk to my host family's house past the Circle K convenience store and under the large torii gate standing at the entrance to the neighborhood. The whole area was considered an extension of the shrine, although while I was in Japan my host family and I never actually got around to visiting it.
A lot of my time outside of class was spent traveling around town and doing homework in my room. Class lasted three hours in the morning starting at half past eight, and three days a week I had a second class: either Japanese Culture in the conference room or Economics at the local university, which required another bike ride. When I did not have class, I had a review meeting with my Japanese teacher or Friday cultural activities at the school. At the end of the day I went home, said hello to my host family, and went upstairs to my desk to work as best I could. Some days in class I felt on top of the world, and others I was the worst out of everyone. So, I generally studied until midnight or later, then woke up at six or half past to start over. On the weekends I usually did one of two things: 1) lie around in my room watching anime or reading after a long week of working or 2) going shopping with my school friends. Frankly, I am not especially proud of myself for spending so much time lazing about, but school in Japan kicked my butt more than my American college classes did and I was so tired come week's end. (Or I simply tried harder in Japan. I am not sure. I still only came out with a C+, and my teachers often commented on how I could be so good one day and so bad the next.)
The only times I spent with my host family were meal times, and I put a lot of effort into this. I lived with Yoko (mother), Masashi (father), Koshiro (8-year-old son), and Haruna (4-year-old daughter). I was closest to my host mother Yoko, since she taught English from her home and we had the easiest time talking. (Interestingly, all the home stay students were warned that our host families would not speak English, but despite being the highest level speaker out of the five home stay students, I was the only person to live with an English-speaker.) My host father worked at the local Bridgestone factory, and he was a fairly reserved man. We did not speak much, but we got along just fine. Early on, in the last blazing days of summer in September, the whole family went to a sports day hosted by Haruna's nursery school and my host father was the one to reach over and touch my collar bone when he noticed that I was severely sunburned. He would raise his voice only when the children were getting too rowdy, which unfortunately was most evenings, and force them to calm down so that we could all watch TV in peace, or have some dinnertime conversation.
TV is a big part of Japanese life. From what I have gathered, it stems from the turn of the last century on up through the 1980's. Japan pushed to become a part of the modern, Western-styled world, and succeeded before any of its Eastern neighbors. Once they became more available, things like televisions and other electronics became status symbols. I have even heard that families would have the empty boxes on display in their main rooms so that guests would see that they had these fancy items in the house. If you had the basics, no matter how poor you were, you could call yourself middle class and prosperous. So, TV became a big part of life.
Therefore, variety shows began to pop up alongside the well known anime shows, Power Rangers, and children's programming. Variety shows feature segments on this or that potentially interesting thing. There are also gaming shows with a similar format. My host mother always watched the same program in the morning, and then we would watch various channels during dinner.
(Picture from Mezamashi TV found on Google Images)
When I got up early to go to school, I would sit on my cushion seat at the table and Yoko would bring me hot tea, yogurt, and toast with jam or marmalade. I would watch my favorite cartoon segment Kami Usagie Rope (Paper Rabbit Rope, 紙兎ロぺ), then Yoko's favorite morning variety show Mezamashi TV would begin at seven. There were two hosts: a tall, normal-looking, middle-aged man in a suit with slightly crooked teeth, and a young woman with perfect skin, hair, clothes, and a slim body with a doll-like face. They would introduce segments as though they were news anchors—I actually only saw the real news once or twice when something like a flood or typhoon was going on—and then the camera will follow around a model for a bit. She would lead the audience to a cafe or restaurant, and would be served something tasty that she could talk about. I remember one particular model looking terrified behind her large smile as a massive parfait ice cream sundae was put down in front of her. Usually the models would only have a few bites on camera. The next segment would be about a product that you could buy. The ones I remembered best were a set of beanbags made to look like pastries and a set of pens that looked like garden vegetables. After these segments, at around 7:15, I would have to leave to catch the train unless word came that a typhoon was coming. On those rare days, even if the weather outside looked okay, nobody went to school.
(Picture from Paper Rabbit Rope found on Google Images)
In the evening I would arrive back home, greet everyone, and almost immediately head to my room to study at my desk. However, the whole point of me living with a Japanese family was to live with them, spend time with them, learn about their lives, and generally immerse myself in the local culture in ways I could not in the dorm or while traveling. So, every night around eight o'clock, my two host siblings would come scrambling up the stairs to bang on my door and shout that dinner was ready. "Gohan da yo!!" I would then follow them downstairs to the living room, which was also the dining room. Traditional Japanese tables are low to the ground and everyone sits on flat cushions in the seiza position (on your knees). Since sitting like that for more than ten or fifteen minutes really hurt my legs, my host parents allowed me to relax and sit with my legs crossed or off to the side. Koshiro, who we called Ko-chan, sometimes asked why I got to sit however I wanted and my host mother Yoko would tell him it was because I was American and was not used to it. (Haruna, or Haru-chan, usually sat in a tiny chair that she pulled up to the table.) I always felt badly that I was not setting a good example for the two of them. Seiza position situates a person so that their feet are pointed away from every other person at the table. In the same way that bowing and placing the highest part of your body towards another person is respectful, showing other people the bottoms of your feet, the lowest part of your body, can be seen as very rude. At the dinner table, I would compare it to putting your elbows on the table. In a casual situation, probably no one is going to get mad, but it is not proper and parents teach their children not to do it.
Yoko made traditional Japanese dinner spreads most nights. She relaxed a bit more when it came to lunch on the weekends, usually buying packet ramen or packaged sandwiches and yogurt drinks. My favorite meals were the ones that had a whole fish butterflied and broiled that we all took from. There would be a bowl of miso soup, a bowl of rice, vegetables, and other little things on dishes that we all took from. The meal was always set out on the table, so there was a lot of reaching and passing plates around rather than a set number of helpings. Like most Japanese food, Yoko's dishes were healthy, low fat, and simple. I learned to like Japanese food so much that I would sometimes request leftover rice if the meal did not call for it, and I completely forgot about milk and cheese. (Yogurt drinks might count as a sort of milk, but considering how much I like cereal I was surprised that I did not miss having the usual sort. Many Japanese people are either lactose intolerant or do not like paying for milk since it is expensive.) The only time I had cheese in Japan was on my host father's birthday when Yoko made a thick, cheesy penne pasta.
While we ate dinner, we would talk, but the large flat screen TV would always be on too. The TV was almost always on by the time I came downstairs, so I just watched whatever my host family put on. The same was true on the weekends when I had the energy to leave my room for anything but shopping with my school friends. (There are many temptations in Japan. You must budget and commit to buying only the things you most want.) The programs were always different. Sometimes the kids had a show they wanted to watch such as Pokemon or Power Rangers, or we would put on a movie, but during dinner we watched variety shows or game shows for the most part.
At first I thought they were pretty ridiculous. In many cases these shows are made up of segments that are watched by a theater audience as well as a stage audience. The audience at home watches the segments while a little reaction box in the corner shows what the theater and stage audiences are doing, flipping from face to face. Usually the stage audience will consist of various stars, pop idols, comedians, and other TV personalities who are sitting on stage in front of the theater audience. They will react to the show's segments, comment on them, and crack jokes. I once saw the entire AKB48 girl group, which actually has 48 singing and dancing members, participate on a show. Between TV segments, the TV personalities will often have time to participate in their own stage games or question and answer segments. Meanwhile, the audience at home gets to hear them react to things. On top of that, lots of Japanese television includes selective subtitles, so when interesting things are happening you will often see big, brightly colored words on the screen following along with what people on screen are saying. This gives emphasis to the reactions and the information alongside the reaction box, and also made it easier for me to follow along since Japanese people can speak so fast.
We watched many shows like this, but I only remember a select few clearly. The ones that were the most interesting were the ones we did not talk over and therefore I remember them better. One show did a long piece about following Japanese people around in their everyday lives living in other countries. They visited several, including a wealthy couple in California and a Japanese woman married to an Italian man in Venice. Rather than having a TV personality ask these people questions, the camera was treated as the interviewer. The audience heard the voice of a woman and saw cartoons of a little Japanese housewife between segments, but otherwise did not see the hostess. Her whole character was that of a middle-aged Japanese housewife, probably trying to appeal to a similar demographic. However, I think there was probably a producer or some other sort of interviewer there to follow those people around who were then dubbed over by the female voice.
Another show visited various cities around Russia, which I found very interesting because I had visited Russia at this point but had not strayed beyond the European sliver of the huge country. The TV hosts indulged in Russian cuisine and fishing, and experienced some rugged living.
One of the shows that held my attention the most and kept me from going back to my homework for at least two hours was a long segment about Imoto Ayako (イモトアヤコ), a female TV personality who wears huge black eyebrows. I believe her stage name translates to something like "Your Brat Sister Ayako." I had never seen her before, by my host mother recognized her. She explained that the black eyebrows were ugly indeed, but they made her stand out as a TV personality. The show we watched was about Imoto Ayako climbing Mount Everest along with a guide, a team, and some cameramen. We were all fascinated by the endeavor as she described what they were going to do, then started at the base camp before beginning the climb. We were not sure they would make it, as there was some bad weather and it looked like sleeping in tents on the slopes would be miserable, but somehow they got all the way to the peak. Afterward, back on flat ground, Imoto Ayako relayed her feelings on the experience. Her mountain guide also talked about it and I recall him saying that he had fallen in love with Imoto Ayako, but she was a big TV star so he would not say anything about it. Yoko and Masashi's surprise confirmed that I had heard right.
(Pictures of Imoto Ayako found on Google Images)
Along the same lines as variety shows are game shows. Celebrity guests are brought in to compete against each other in hilarious games. Once a group of celebrities, mostly pop stars, went on a computer generated safari. In order to get past obstacles, they had to quickly and correctly write difficult Chinese characters. Another show features a game with air pressure guns that fired fluffy balls. Yet another had the celebrities trying to solve some sort of puzzle while perched on a ledge that was slowly retreating into the wall until they either succeeded or fell off it. One of my very favorites is one I saw a video of after I came back to the States. A singing girl group took turns putting their hands into a box that they could not see inside, but that everyone else could. There would be things like big bugs, frogs, styrofoam balls with toothpicks sticking out of them, and other things that felt weird on their hands. The girls had to guess correctly what they were touching. Some of the objects, however, were jokes. One girl was absolutely terrified of the whole thing and panicked and screamed every time she stuck her hand in the box. Little did she know that the creepy, moving thing inside was just a little robot dog walking around.
