When I went to [Kansai Gaidai University] in Japan, for the first semester, I stayed with a Host Family. I want to share why this was such a bad experience in my opinion, but in no way do I not reccomend doing it, just please bear in mind that not everyone's suited to this programme.

I arrived in this country [at time of writing, I'm 6 months into this stay] with an open heart, and willingness to learn about whatever I had to. I had pink hair, undercut, multiple ear piercings, and black wardrobe. I think that anyone you'd care to ask about me will agree that I'm a pretty easy-going person. Accepting of any religions, ethnicity and beliefs that you have. unless you try to push them onto me...

When I applied to K.G. I sent along twelve photos of me. All of them the same, all of them had me with short pink hair. I didn't want them having a false image of me from the outset, and to be honest, when I was sending them the photos, I half didn't want to come anyways, so them turning me down wouldn't have been such a bad blow at the time. I'd have assumed that sending 12 of them would have made sure that anyone out there knew what was coming their way. Big mistake.

We were handed the papers containing details of our families on the [29th of August] and I have to say, I was pretty excited...

Members: 4
Father, Mother, two daughters
Both Older. One is 20, the other is 25.

Only 35 minutes to Uni, this is a +
No drinkers or smokers, this is a - *for the drinking bit anyways*
I have to teach English to the 20 year old
They've had a homestay before, and have been to Canada.
Christian. Oh dear. Religion isn't my strong point

I think I got a good one overall

So on the sunday,I got up early to meet my host family. The meeting time was 10:30 am. I'd had a shower the night before, and freshly dyed my hair, so it was a nice shade of pink, and looking nice. I hid as much of my jewellery as I could, and went to fill out forms in one room, before being handed over.

I walked into the room with all the nervousness of someone on a first date. Came face to face with a woman very small, and grinning at me. Then she whispered to the translator.

"She says you'll have to dye your hair. The neighbours won't like it and shame will come on the family."

I was taken back. We were sat down, me and the translator facing this little lady with greying hair dyed black and teeth like you'd... we'll like you'd expect to be honest. The Japanese have very bad, very expensive dentists. The translator, [I could speak japanese, but not very much at this point], explained that they couldn't make me dye my hair, but it would be better for relations with the family, and that it would be better if I dyed my hair. I can't believe I did this, but I agreed to do this for the sake of face, my University, and K.G. University too.

I was in tears at this point. I know it sounds petty, but my hair, was part of my identity, it's the first thing people notice, it's the way I Stand out from all the other foreigners here, and part of me. I swallowed my pride, and hoped that after a couple of days, they'd change their mind, and I would be able to stay the me that I have adapted myself to, that I've changed to the way I want. I met the father of the family, who didn't even blink when I turned up at their house, and then the daughters. The fact that the house was in the middle of a load of rice fields and general nothingness had no nevermind apparently. Neighbours? There were none.

"Ignore Okaasan, keep your hair, we like it!"
If only...

A couple of days went past, and Okaasan had said that I could leave my hair "Sono Mama" which means as it is. I guessed this meant just let the pink grow/wash out, and so I calmed down a hell of a lot. The next day, I came home to find myself presented with two boxes of hair dye. Black and Brown. I calmly asked why, and Okaasan explained it was to dye my hair with. I was physically and mentally exhausted. I cried again. I was 6000 miles away from my family, and being told to change it again. My real parents don't try and change me, why should I let someone who was having me as a guest in their house change me?

I came to a solution, I would bleach it. This way I would be able to go back pink again one day. So one day, I took out the bleach, and ended up blonde. It was a compromise, one that I didn't think I'd have to make, but if it was to keep the peace, I was willing to make it. My real mother loved me blonde, but all I saw was brown roots [that go better with the pink], and damaged hair [I bleach it less frequently when it's pink].

I went to the CIE [Centre for International Education] at some point, and asked to see my application. I was wondering whether I'd bowed to my dad's wishes and put Christian on my form, or gone for the truth and put Atheist. I'd put the latter. What kind of place signs up a Christian family with an atheist student. Christianity makes up less than a percent of Japanese religion. Sureley the best thing that they could have done would to have been put a student with similar intrests with them. I also noticed that they had handed out a Photocopy of the pink-haired photo I'd handed in. A photocopy. I'm not surprised that my family hadn't been prepared.

The next incident... was imminent...

I decided that instead of having pink hair, I was going to make wool extensions. I'd never had any before, and I thought that it'd be a removable way of having my colour back and be able to remove it at any time. I sat at home one afternoon, making some falls, and Okaasan came home. The first thing she said was "Dame" [pronounced Da-me] which means "not allowed, wrong". I had heard this word all too much, it's like a one-word vocabulary to this woman. Dame Dame Dame. I had had enough of this, and was seriously doubting whether I wanted to stay with them any longer, let alone stay with them into the next semester.

A couple of weeks later, I was feeling particularily down. Something I do in England when I feel like this is to take more dye to my hair. I thought that maybe Okaasan wouldn't be too bothered by a couple of pink pieces at the front of my hair. Just the front two slices. Apparently she would. I came home that night to find she had written a note for me, and was reading it to me.

"Lee-Chan, Can. You. Do. Me. A. Favour...?
Take out piercing and NO PINK!"

See, I had decided to play with the piercings in my ears, as I can't have any more done, and I had decided to decorate the ones with as much metal as I could manage. Instead of the usual 8 studs, I had got rings and strechers and allsorts. The woman infuriated me, but I told her I wouldn't dye the hair pink, and took to wearing my falls to school instead, putting them on and taking them off on the bus to and from school.

I was then asked one day, while sat doing my homework "Lee-chan, do you want a part-time job?"
"Okaasan, they are Dame!"
"It's ok, I said it is ok"
So I agreed to teach English to a friend of Okaasan's children. Now, the school had already said that people in homestay families aren't allowed to have part-time jobs, so I kept this pretty quiet, but after the third week of not getting paid for this, I was talking to the school about general check-up as to how it was going, and I told them how I thought Okaasan had tricked me into teaching English for free. I think the school mentioned something to Okaasan on the phone, as that evening I got about ¥8000 from Okaasan. that's about £40. I said "Can you say thanks to Mrs. Harahata for me", and Okaasan said "It's not from Mrs. Harahata, it's a reward from me." Definately not on to be tricking someone into teaching English for free.

Later on in the saga, I was eating my dinner and remarking on how I didn't like vegetables much. Okaasan told me that if I didn't eat my vegetables, then I would get cancer. I completeley lost it. My Grandma had died from cancer a maximum of 4 months earlier, I was not going to put up with that. I told her this, and all she could reply with was that my Grandma mustn't have eaten enough vegetables. I was furious, and put that down as another reason that I shoudln't stay with this damn family

And it continued...

I was in a class about architecture. The sensei was trying to explain topics we could use to write about for our final paper. He mentioned pachinko parlours, and I remembered that I lived opposite one. One that shone into my bedroom window every night and kept me awake. This seemed like an ideal oppertunity, and would make studying these buildings relativeley easy. I came home one night, and asked my sister if she was free that evening. She said no, but my other sister may be. When she enquired as to why I needed her, I explained that I needed someone to translate for me when I go to talk to the people working there. She told me to ask my other sister, and then left the room.

Okaasan called to me from the kitchinette
"Lee-Chan, My Daughters are Christian..."
"Yes, Okaasan" I had become indifferent to this at this point, and was waiting for something that was going to tell me Dame again...
"Pachinko is Dame"

I tried arguing my point, that they would only be going in to translate for me. That they weren't going to be playing pachinko and that if they were really Christians like she said, then they wouldn't be tempted. It was going nowhere. Never in my life have I met someone so unwilling to learn about other cultures, and anyone so stuck in their own beliefs that were so twisted. I mean, she let her children work on a sunday, the sabbath day, which if I'm not mistaken is mentioned in the [Ten Commandments].

Exodus 20
8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Well, I can see the Sabbath day clearly outlined there, but no mention of the Pachinko parlours. I never brought this point up with her, unfortunately I didn't think about this until I had left the homestay, and I don't think I would have had the guts to do it anyways. Oh dear I really felt sorry for her. The kind of Christianity that must've reached that woman must have been a very warped form indeed.

This incident was the killer though. I have quite a few good friends out here, and one of them came out to people when he was here. I was [I think] the third person he told, Via text message, and again at school. That night I came home shocked, and Okaasan asked me what was wrong. I think I was playing with fire when I decided to answer her truthfully, but I wasn't going to lie to her. I told her that I had just found out that a friend was gay, and I was surprised.

"Gay is Dame."
I couldn't even believe those words were passing her lips. Enraged, I immediately asked why.
"They get AIDS."
I calmly [well, as calmly as I could] explained that anyone who slept around and didn't use protection could get aids. I said that I could get aids. She asked me how many people I'd slept with. I'm not ashamed, I told her. She wasn't shocked, but then told me not to tell her daughters, as they are serious and it's not something they should hear. Then she told me that I was going to hell because I had had sex before I was married.

Then came the clincher.

She insinuated that my Grandma was in hell because of this same reason. I said that there was no way that my grandma had had sex before she married my Grandad. My Grandad wouldn't have touched her. Then she suggested it was because she wasn't religious. I decided that enough was enough. I told her that even I was religious when I was a child. I studied the bible every day, did the assigned reading. I hid the bible because I would have been teased, and I still had no friends, and nothing good happened to me. She told me I wasn't studying enough. I used to go to church every week with the brownies. Apparently I'm still damned to hell. She then 'conquered' my idea that there's too many bad people in the world any more, by telling me the world was about to end. She told me that I wasn't happy with the idea that there is nothing after you die and that I believed my grandma was in heaven.

That was the final straw.

I ended up in tears, being made to read from The Bible. I was trying to refuse, and leave, but she kept on. I am not being told what I do or don't believe. I had to put her straight and TRY and explain, I am happy thinking that there's nothing more out there for me and once it's over it's over. I called a friend, left the house, and cried on him at a nearby park. At this point, I coudln't wait to leave, and was under no apprehension about leaving this family, and enjoying my remaining time in Japan

The following week, my second last week with the family, I was teaching English to the children I had been tricked into teaching for 'free' and the mother invited me to go and see them on the 25th of December. This not being an important day in the Japanese calendar, this wasn't anything strange, but I decided to change it to the 26th. This all set, I looked forwards to seeing them the following week for my final English teaching lesson.

The lesson went by with nothing untoward, but at the end, the mother said "I'm sorry you can't come to stay with us." I just guessed that this was because they had changed their plans, and thought nothing more of it than the language barrier. Later, as they were leaving for the last time, my sister asked why I couldn't go stay with them. The mother said "Your mother said it was dame." I sat there. I listened. You are talking Japanese in front of a year and a half-long Japanese student. It then went on to say that Okaasan had said that the school had prohibited it.

I didn't say anything at the time, but instead decided to check with school to see if there was something stopping me from staying at someone else's house. I checked at the office, and yes, there is no rule saying that I can't stay at someone else's house. Despite the fact that I would be terminating my stay with them, and that it would be in the Christmas break, when I wasn't with them anyways. Not content with running my life while I was at her house, this woman was trying to control me when I was away from her.

I left them on the 18th of December, 2002 for the dormitories right next to school. I didn't get to see my sisters or Otousan, and Okaasan took me to a chinese restaurant, where I made polite conversation, and then finally unpacked my stuff from her car. I haven't had a message from her since [25th February] although I have had some from my eldest host sister. My parents never recieved the thankyou letter I helped her to write for the books they sent the family, and they never did take me out or see me again. I think this is for the best.

When the new semester of students came to this University, I made sure to check the list of people vs. the host families they were getting. I was very pleased not to see this family's name on the list. I was going to go straight to the office and tell them that this was a bad idea, but there was no need. It appears that me telling the office what was wrong, coupled with the review form I handed in may have stopped someone from suffering the same fate as me. This, can only be a good thing, as the next person may not have been as submissive as I was.

I hope this helps people see why I am not keen on A. host families, B. Japanese Christians, or C. my first semester in Japan. Don't get me wrong, I like most of Japan, but with the prejudice and rascism I've experienced in this country, please forgive me if I don't masturbate over the place.

Don't knock what you haven't tried, but don't tell me I can't, because I've been there.