New Years and a Kick in the Ass

On New Year’s eve I had a nice little conversation with my host dad. Well, it was more of me being talked at than a conversation, trying to understand most of what he said. He was angry, and frustrated and maybe a bit disappointed. At me. The reason of which being my studying. When school was on I would study during school, and then just relax when I came home. That’s not the Japanese way - the Japanese way is to study in school, then come home and study more. Actually it’s not too much different from the way back home, only back home I never studied either. Didn’t have to, actually. But here is different, and learning a language is different. He asked me what my purpose in coming to Japan was. The answer was to experience Japanese culture but I knew that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and I’ve learned from a lifetimes worth of experience of this to always tell them what they want to hear, unless it’s a bigger deal. So I told him that it was to learn the language (which was still entirely true). So there was more of that. Then later, my host mom came up and talked to me. The mom figures are always the one’s to make you feel better. She tried to explain to me a bit better all of what he said, and supposedly it wasn’t all just scolding but it was encouragement, too. He said that I’m smart, and that he knows I can become really great at the language, I just have to try harder. So that was kind of a relief. But I do agree with him, and on some level I’m glad he drilled me. I’m no where near as fluent in the language as I want to be, and it’s been a little over four months.

And then, like nothing had happened, we packed up and headed out to the hotel that we would be staying at for New Years. We spent the time there with host brother’s family. I got my own room, which was nice. We had supper at the hotel in this really fancy Japanese room. All of the courses were very Japanese. The last thing we ate was soba. It’s a tradition to eat soba with the family on New Years as it brings luck and health for the coming year. At around 10 o’clock we went to see a magic show. It was held in one of the hotel’s ballrooms, and was pretty lavishly done up. The magician was pretty good, and did a bunch of stuff with doves and fire, and had I little 5 year old kid come up for a while and did some tricks with him. After the magic show was a bingo game. I came so close to winning. In about 5 places I just needed one more number.

After the countdown, everything ended pretty quickly. We stayed overnight at the hotel and had breakfast the next morning. It was supposed to be my first time going to onsen, too, but I came down with a freak cold and so I wasn’t allowed to go. That same cold is still pissing me off.

Yesturday, we went over to my host dad’s brother’s house for another little New Years party. It was a whole family get-together thing. We had supper there and talked a bunch (well, I mostly just listened). For much of the night, I played Super Mario bros. with all my host cousins and nephews. Except for a little baby, I’m the only female kid in the family at the moment. There isn’t much to write about for the night, but it was actually really fun. And when we got home… yeah, I studied.