Neighborhood Hirakata

(Rewritten: May 10, 2008)

I rewrote this post because I’m determined to somehow get photos in here. So, I’ll instead talk about some of the actual people in Makino.

There are two major groups of people in Makino that I am familiar with. Since my host family has two houses, I know of two distinct neighborhoods. The first is the one we actually live in, and I’ll reuse some snow photos to talk about them.

This is taken from the front door of my host family’s house. The two houses directly in front of us that you can’t really see are gone now—all that’s left are their foundations. The one directly next to the non-existent houses across the street has two sons who, when they catch me coming home, take great joy in shouting “herro” to me and get downright disappointed when I don’t say “hello” back. Instead of snow, the balcony now has those carp flags hanging from it in honor of children’s day. They still haven’t taken them down. The next house down has a salary-man who owns a little scooter and enjoys being noisy when he returns home late at night. And the house directly next door to us is owned by an older couple who (gasp) have just recently started saying “Ohayou Gozaimasu” to me when they see me. I do my best not to bother them with my music since their living room is maybe three feet away from my bedroom and I can occasionally hear their TV going.

The other half of Makino that I am familiar with is near the host family’s second house. This second house is where most of their homestay students have stayed, and it is also the location of my host mother’s English school, which I occasionally visit for all the major holidays, where I am asked to discuss how Americans spend the holiday. Because, apparently, I represent Americans as a whole. Right. But it’s also a good experience for me because I learn about Japanese holidays and the typical way they are celebrated. The children who attend this school all live fairly close by and since most of the international students my family has hosted lived in this house, the community there is much more used to seeing blond hair. They don’t stare and they aren’t too scared to talk to me, which I think is awful nice. One of the boys lives on the other side of the block so he can walk without any problems, but he brings his bike every time just to show off. Naturally, I tell him it’s the coolest bike on the face of the planet. The other two live a little further down the street and actually do need to bring a bike, and there’s a little girl who occasionally comes but her mother brings her. And you’d think it was a horrible crime that I know nothing about what to do on Children’s day!