Only 3 more months...

room
Originally uploaded by sillyhapa.

My new homestay family in Tokyo is somewhat of a nightmare. This is my bedroom (at least I have one to myself) -- Yes, that's a desk pushed right up against my bed; yes, there are no sheets or blankets on the bed; and yes, you can see the interior of my neighbor's bedroom straight through my lacy transparent curtains. There is no room for my luggage, no closet space, no drawers, and worst of all, no air conditioning.

My host mother, who is from Taiwan, commandeers my life in a combination of poor Japanese and even worse English, telling me when to shower, when to brush my teeth, what to eat, and everything else she can think of. She also expresses loud disapproval of my facial piercing. I am not allowed to receive incoming calls, I cannot use the family computer, and who knows what my 60,000 yen a month rent goes toward, because they are loath to even lend me a spare towel.

Besides my yammering host mother, I have a sulking, sullen high school-age host sister, and a dim-witted toothless host father. When they speak to each other, their speech is so slurry I can't tell if they're speaking Japanese or Chinese, or perhaps a language they have concocted together that consists only of consonants and wheezy barking.

I fear I will never want to leave the hallowed halls of my college campus, or that I will instead develop a tenacious craving for the pachinko parlors. At least they have loaned me a jitensha, by which I will escape every night.

Sometimes you have pink eye and an ear infection and there's a typhoon outside and you have become a deaf-mute and think that everyone is speaking to you in tongues and still you have to catch an airplane and find a motel by yourself and you think that things can't get any worse. But of course they always can, and that's the beauty of the thing. You just never know.