丁丁の家

先週くぃさんにメイルをもらいました。I asked him in the previous email if I can go to Japan this summer and stay with a family, babysitting and maybe doing some light housework as to keep the cost of travel down. He explained to me in a very long email that Japan has a very different culture than I expected. He says that people don’t often go to each other’s house to visit and privacy is highly regarded. Therefore, unless there are some kind of program which associate international students and the family together, it is very unlikely that the local families will comfortable of stranger staying with them. Also, he says in order to work, we need government permission, and normally the contract will need to be at least one year long. I felt pretty frustrated when I first learned about all these. Now I am very much daunted by the fact that living in Japan is so expensive and fusing into the culture is harder than I expected. I hope I won’t give up learning Japanese in the end.