Hey guys!

Hope you liked hearing about my experiences, not sure if you can tell in the video but it's quite a hard thing for me to talk about. It was quite a big step for me to go abroad by myself for the first time and this experience was really stressful for me.

I'd really like to stress that everyone else on the course had a great time at their homestay, it was a really valuable experience for the people I spoke to some of them are even going back to visit their homestay family this year! Nowadays I'm not at all mad at the family, although the way they treated me seemed quite harsh, it could be due to cultural differences I'm sorry for causing them any inconvenience/upset (they probably complain about the English girl they had to kick out too, it wasn't the homestay either of us wanted and that is sad). The most upsetting part for me was my treatment from the man from the homestay company. I was really taken aback, every Japanese person I'd spoken to so far was so polite and this man was so horrible to me! It was really shocking to be called a 'horrible young lady' when all I'd done was had an allergic reaction! I thought he'd be more understanding, but what can you do!

Although it did knock my confidence a bit, it didn't ruin my whole trip. I still had a really lovely time in Japan, it's a really beautiful country and I really enjoy the learning the language.




Also I'd just like to add a couple of things because I get a lot of comments about these questions so hopefully people can just find the answer here instead.

'Why didn't you say something before dinner was ready?'

My reaction wasn't immediate the night before, I didn't have trouble breathing/a rash until I was going to bed (a couple hours later) so I didn't bring it up that evening because I thought it was too late at night. Then I spoke to the mother in the morning (I'd looked up how to tell her about my allergic reaction in proper Japanese before I'd left my room). But for whatever reason she didn't understand me, I'm not sure why because I looked it up but I needed to go to school so I just left the house and had no way of contacting them during the day because I didn't have a Japanese phone. The other members of the family spoke English so I thought it would just be easier to leave it and try and ask in English later on. When I got home the dinner was ready so I didn't have an earlier opportunity to bring it up. I wasn't worried about the situation and didn't feel the need to talk to any of the staff at school about it because I didn't realise it would be such a big deal to ask about the ingredients of a meal, I thought the family would want to help me figure out what I was allergic to. I obviously wasn't deliberately trying to cause a scene or anything, I was very taken aback and confused by them ignoring me and people are perfectly welcome to say what I did was wrong, but please understand that you have the benefit of hindsight.

'So what are you allergic to?'

I honestly have no idea! I couldn't have gone to a doctor because I don't speak nearly enough Japanese for that to be viable. I also couldn't have asked them to do an allergic test because it can take a few weeks to get results and I had no idea what they should be testing me for because the family wouldn't tell me what I was eating and they can't just test me for literally everything. The scary thing with allergies is that the first reaction can be not so bad and the second one can be life threatening. I just hope I don't come across the substance again!

This is the course I went on for those who are interested:
http://www.meiji.ac.jp/cip/english/pr...

I might add to this later but those are the most common two so hope that helps. I'd also like to say that I wouldn't claim to have acted perfectly, I'm not really sure what I should have done instead and there doesn't really seem to be a clear consensus in the comments either. I just did what I thought was right at the time and I didn't expect the family to react they way they did because I wasn't trying to be deliberately disrespectful or anything and I feel sorry that I caused the family to be upset/inconvenienced. I was also new to the environment of a Japanese family and everyone makes mistakes (especially in unfamiliar situations!). I tried to prepare as much as possible by reading things online but ultimately every homestay is different and every family is unique.

I am not at all angry or sad about this situation now that more time has passed. I'm also becoming more open to the idea of doing another homestay (provided that my Japanese is at a much higher level). Thank you for reading, I hope this explains the situation a little more.