At the first time, I though that many Japanese people tend to avoid talking to or being near stranger, as I knew from they teach their child : “don’t talk to stranger”.
In this case, I’m a stranger, plus a foreigner.
But I’ve found that I couldn’t generalize it simply after meeting my host family, Ohmiya Family. The family is one of the HIPPO family club member, a club in which they accept foreigner to have a homestay in their houses in order to learn languanges.
I first met them on November 2011, when I had a chance to stay one night in their house. Ohmiya family consists of the father (Kazuhisa), the mother (Sachie), and the 6-year-old-son (Itsuki). I really couldn’t speak Japanese except greetings at that time, so it was a bit hard for us to communicate. But with the help of mobile phone’s dictionary and (many) body languanges, at least we didn’t have misunderstanding ;-p
In the night, we had dinner together, featuring Apa Kabar-san (it’s a HIPPO club nickname, given to her because she once lived in Bandung for several years and I don’t know her real name up to now) and also Rumi-chan. I cooked fried rice for them (since Sachie-san had bought Indonesian fried rice seasoning in Kaldi Shop so they just had me cook, hehe). I felt relieved they didn’t have me cook something as not piece-of-cake as fried rice –> rendang, for example. With prawns and scrambled eggs as the topping, I felt it was perfect! Yes, I felt the taste was also perfect for them, it was not spicy at all! But……they said it was spicy after all!
haa, Japanese people really can’t stand the chilly’s spiciness even a bit! I should’ve known that! Then they really struggled to eat it until the last piece of rice, for respecting this-so-spicy-food-for-Japanese I made, I guess, making me felt guilty in the end.
Little Hikari 