Japanese students

[hammerman]

We have decided to dip our toes into the world of students. We've never had one before and we have found ourselves with a spare bedroom after the middle and eldest daughter moved into a flat.

We've had the checks and yesterday, we were told that there would be a Japanese girl who would require bed, breakfast and evening meal and she is coming on the 17th July for 3 weeks.

We are obviously nervous as well as excited....my 8 year old daughter can't wait !!!!. But i understand that the Japanese are very polite....often too polite and won't tell you if they don't like your cooking or if there's anything else that's wrong.

Does anyone have any experience ? any tips, suggestions or comments on what to expect....the more info i have, the better the stay will be for the student.

We will obviously make the student (i hate that word....far too impersonal) feel as part of our family as possible and encourage her to participate in our culture whilst hopefully we can learn something about hers.

Any advice would be most welcome.

Thank you

[delboy3]

From what I see on TV, most young Japanese are more Westernised than we are!!

I only have experience of looking after European students, and mostly I found that they were quite happy to look after themselves, so don't try too hard or she might feel a little stifled.

I'm sure you'll get on fine and those 3 weeks will fly by.

よい運 (= good luck!)

[eleanswers]

I'm sure everything will be fine for you, friends of mine had a European student with them for some time. They had no children, but it wasn't anything like the student became part of the family, more like it was a student base - to sleep & store her stuff.
As a student myself I had foreign friends who also only used the bedroom of the house with a few hello's.
You say above that the Japanese girl requires Bed, Breakfast & evening meal, sometimes this is all they want as they are very busy.
As long as she has her space & feels welcome you will be the perfect hosts. Your younger daughter maybe expecting a 'sister' figure and find she may be disappointed.

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but the Far East don't have dairy in their diet, (only recently introduced) and many are lactose intollorant. So milk, cheese, yoghurt ect is a no no until you know where she is on that. Stock up on soya this & soya that.

You sound like the perfect hosts and I'm sure she'll be the perfect guest.

[lynbrown]

We used to have students and my favourites were the Germans - always pleasant and sensible. We had a Japanese girl too and she was lovely but had to send home for a food parcel, she hated our food!

[sense4all]

All the Japanese teenagers I have met are always polite, they are one of the biggest groups of kids at my Sons school.
If you are worried about feeding them something head to your local Waitrose and you will find some things there that will go down well. Have a gander at this book if you wnt to make them feel at home in the first couple of days while they settle. http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stor es/servlet/productSearch_10001_10051_16601_100 ___10_SimpleSearch_2_1_2__basicSearch_

My friend had a girl stay from the local Japanese school and the most interesting thing that she said was that she thought anyone who sat in a bath without having washed first was off their rocker. ( So you might allocate a bit longer for ablutions than you or I might need!! )
There are a few things to read on here that might give you conversational starter points.
http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/

Enjoy, the worst students I had here were Austrian boys - I'd much rather have a Japanese girl. Good luck!