My host family put this up before I arrived. Photo by Jennifer Trend. 
We were able to try on Yukata at the school. Photo by Jennifer Trend. 
This is where people offer up their wishes or prayers with wind chimes, which we stumbled upon during the weekend. Photo by Jennifer Trend. 
Nagoya Castle. Photo by Jennifer Trend. 
One of the markets in Osu. Photo by Jennifer Trend.
By Jennifer Trend, Lifestyle Editor
For two weeks, eight other students and I from the Japanese 3 class went with Saori Tanaka, Japanese teacher, to Japan. We went to Tokyo for two days, had a week of homestay in Nagoya, and then spent three days in Kyoto. Honestly, it was probably the best two weeks of my life. Part two in the series.
Nagoya
Our homestay was located in Nagoya, the hottest and most humid place in Japan. It’s in the middle of Japan, which means it gets no breeze from the ocean, no way of getting cool and no way of it being any lower than 80 degrees (plus insane humidity!!). Okay, but heat aside, I loved every moment of my time there. From the host family to the school to the different places we went, I had an amazing time.
Family
Just like everyone else, I was a little nervous but excited to meet my host family. My host sister, Azu, and I were able to talk a bit before we met in person. We ended up having the same interests in hyakunin isshu (a traditional Japanese card game) and she also had a vast collection of books and manga (I’m talking floor to ceiling, wall to wall, double stacked) so if you know me, you know I pretty much thought I had died and went to heaven. But aside from that, her family was so sweet, kind, loving and pretty much any positive adjective you can come up with. I loved every second that I got to spend with them, and dare I say that I cried a bit when we left? On the weekend, the whole family and I were able to go to Nagoya Castle, Osu and a bookshop.
School
I had so many ideas of what Japanese school was like, but the reality was so different from what I had expected. For starters, I thought school was going to be so strict that my American public education would be the downfall of trying to fit in. But no. Surprisingly, class was so laid back that I thought that what we experience as Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) students is very strict to how class was (given, I was in a ninth grade class, what they consider to be middle school, so there might be differences between middle school and high school).
For those who don’t know, everyone doesn’t have their own schedules where each class consists of different teachers and students. It’s more like an American elementary school, where your classmates are your only classmates, but the teacher changes every period to teach a new subject. There is enough time outside of class to interact with other students from different classes.
Throughout the class, it seemed that only the first two or three rows were paying attention, and that’s being generous at best. The rest of the class was talking in normal voices, and the teacher did nothing to talk over them or get them to be quiet. What’s more is that no even seemed to care, as there were multiple students who were sleeping or doodling. I was, needless to say, shocked because at FVHS, depending on the teacher and class, if you so much as have a small conversation too often, you better be ready for a glare from the teacher or a detention.
Then there were the different classes. I was able to go to P.E., Politics, History, Science, Communications and English.
In P.E. at FVHS, we get our own lockers and a changing room. There is none of that at school. We had to change into our uniforms in an empty classroom and not going to lie, I was really confused for a bit. My class had basketball in the gym, and I probably have never sweat so much in my life. The students would try so hard to win and there were no slackers. At FVHS (or any American school for that matter), there’s always one or two people who could not care less and don’t even try to participate. This was not the case at Nagoya– everyone played and gave it 100% of their effort.
In politics and history, I was given a worksheet to try and follow along with the class, and even if I didn’t understand the full question, I was able to figure out or at least guess what the question was asking. I filled the worksheet out and turned it in (I’m so sorry if you attempt to read it, politics and history teachers, my handwriting is so messy).
Science was learning about the food chain, and not going to lie, it was boring and I zoned out for most of it. Nothing much to say there. Oh, but I did learn what a mole (the animal) is in Japanese: Mogura.
Communications class was where I gave up trying to comprehend what I was reading (I mean, there was a passage three pages long, front and back, and usually that would take me thirty minutes to read and translate, so yeah, sue me for giving up) and ended up whipping out good old Google Translate to scan the text. The group of students that I was with were so impressed with what Google Translate could do, especially when I fully understood what we were supposed to be reading. And when I answered the question (in English, c’mon guys what did you expect?), they started huddling around me trying to read what I wrote. They even made me read it out loud to the class and it was like I gained cool points or something for simply talking in English.
Last but not least, we were sent to about four English classes where we played games and learned about Japanese culture, such as Tanabata, or the Star Festival. It was really fun, especially being able to interact with different grade levels. I probably enjoyed the senior class the most, as not only were we the same age, but they were almost like me. And they were really good at English, even if they denied it over and over again (on the other hand, I’m actually terrible at speaking Japanese, take my word on that).
Other than the classes, there were clubs and class projects that took time outside of school hours, and it was common to see band kids practicing in the morning or tennis players practicing after school. Azu, my host sister, had kyudo, traditional archery, and would stay until around five or six practicing. Having nothing of the sort here at FVHS, it was very interesting and fun to watch her and her teammates practice.
Overall, being able to experience Japanese schooling along with how different things are in Nagoya compared to Tokyo was a once in a lifetime experience that I’m glad I had.
