My first week has been spent at the home of my host family Tsujino and Misusu, their son and daughter in law Hironobo and Hisae and their grandchildren Misaki aged 7 and Chiota aged 5. They live in a beautiful Japanese house in Sakai City.
I have been given a suite of 3 rooms on the ground floor overlooking the garden, which is the Japanese custom. These rooms are separated from the long wooden hallway by series of sliding doors which I seem to be always opening and closing as I try to remember outside which room I left my slippers – just like that scene from Madam Butterfly. In Japanese houses you change your shoes for slippers at the entrance hall and then take your slippers off when you enter a room with tatami mat flooring.
Tsujino and his family are very generous. Chiota has taken an interest in me but he speaks much better Japanese which is embarrassing and so I resort to asking him to count to 100 which he willingly does and this gives me time to look up some translations. He has rumbled me however and starts counting from 81.
I have been given a suite of 3 rooms on the ground floor overlooking the garden, which is the Japanese custom. These rooms are separated from the long wooden hallway by series of sliding doors which I seem to be always opening and closing as I try to remember outside which room I left my slippers – just like that scene from Madam Butterfly. In Japanese houses you change your shoes for slippers at the entrance hall and then take your slippers off when you enter a room with tatami mat flooring.
Tsujino and his family are very generous. Chiota has taken an interest in me but he speaks much better Japanese which is embarrassing and so I resort to asking him to count to 100 which he willingly does and this gives me time to look up some translations. He has rumbled me however and starts counting from 81.
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