People often ask what’s worst experience you’ve had as a host family for exchange students. We just had a “interesting” student who stayed with us for 3 weeks. He wasn’t a bad guy, in fact I kind of liked him, but he was definitely the quirkiest homestay student we’ve ever had.
Yuki was a 20 year old college student from Osaka and this was his first homestay experience and first trip outside of Japan. From the moment we picked him up from the airport, I could see that Yuki life revolved around three things with a level of focus that I’ve never seen in a human before. Those things were in order of importance: 1) drinking alcohol, 2) ska music and 3) softball.
A typical conversation was like this.
Me: “It looks like it might rain tomorrow.”
Yuki: “Yes. A scotch and water would be good now.”
Me: “Make sure you bring an umbrella to school.”
Yuki: “Of course. The drummer from Tokyo Paradise Orchestra produced an American Ska album. He used to play softball in Japan you know.”
Other “interesting” behaviors of note:
We had to explicitly tell him to close the door when he left the house. Yuki would leave for school early in the morning, and for the first few days of his stay, we’d awake and go downstairs to find the front door left wide open. We had to tell him to close the door.
I’ve never had anyone sit in my car and start changing the radio stations and turning up the volume WITHOUT ASKING. (I’m sure he as seeking ska music). I had to tell him he should ask first.
We were eating dinner in a restaurant and he picked up my coke and started to drink it. “Do you want a drink,” I asked? “No, I just wanted a sip,” he said.
I was talking on the phone when I heard the distinctive sound of someone picking up the other handset. “Yuki, I’m on the phone,” I said. Silence. I repeated myself at least three more times. Finally he answered, “okay I’m sorry.” Then again three more times I had to ask him to hang up the phone before he finally did.
Yuki was not a bad guy and he did these things with no bad intent. But he would certainly rank among the most immature homestay students we’ve had… and most “interesting.”
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