Traits of the Second-Born Child

4/18/10

In the JASIN program at Nagasaki Gaikokugo Daigaku, you have two options for living accommodations: Live with a host family, or live in the dorms. Both have their pros and cons, but I chose to live with a host family because living in the dorms requires monthly payments for amenities. So in the next four months, I’ll be living with two different families. In April and May, I’ll be with the Hashiguchi family, and in June and July, I’ll be with the Matsuo family.

Life with the Hashiguchi has been pleasant so far. Haruko, my host mom, is very kind and works very hard at both of her jobs to support her family, as there is no father figure (I haven’t asked about it, figuring that it’s not really my place to pry). She always has a smile on her face and I’ve had a few good conversations with her over meals or just sitting at the table sipping tea later in the evening.

Haruko has two children. She has a 21 year old daughter named Shiori who is going to school in Arkansas for nursing. I’ve skyped with her once and she seems like a very nice girl. Her English is really good too. Also, I’m now facebook friends with her.

Haruko also has a son who is the same age as me named Taihei. He goes to a university waaaaaayy on the other side of down town Nagasaki and lives at home with Haruko. My conversations with him were limited at first, mainly because he is very shy and I was nervous about speaking Japanese. Then he got into his accident and spent two nights at the hospital. I went with Haruko to visit him the day of the accident, which was a little awkward, but ended up fine. The funny thing is that when he came home, he started chattering away with me over dinner about the fact that I want to be an animator/comic book artist (He’s a pretty big otaku. His bedroom is nothing but bookshelves full of manga and three guitars).

Since then he’s been on and off with me, sometimes quiet, sometimes talkative, but I like to think that he’s opening up to me and enjoying me as a guest in the apartment he shares with his mom. We’ve had a few moments of bonding, including a night of me teaching him to play War (as in the card game), and talks over dinner with Haruko about how to pronounce things in English.

Little by little, I get to see more of who Taihei is. Recently, I’ve discovered that he and I are really quite similar. Though he’s very shy and I’m more outspoken, we both like drawing and music and (as I recently discovered) finding quirky little treasures. Yesterday, I was on my way home from seeing Alice in Wonderland with a few friends and Taihei happened to be on the bus that I boarded for home. He got off a few stops later, explaining that he was going to do a bit of shopping before coming home.

He came home a couple hours later with some interesting finds that I can only assume he got from some odd hole-in-the-wall shop. Aside from a Beatles poster, he also picked up an old ad poster for Campbell’s soup, a bicycle bell with a smiley face on it, two funny looking rubber ducks (One with Groucho Marx eyebrows), and a Tootsie Roll flashlight. For a good portion of the night he was ringing the bicycle bell, much to Haruko’s annoyance, but I couldn’t help but find it funny. Even today, he’s been ringing it. It makes me see the same child-like wonder and curiosity that I have in him, and though Haruko thinks his findings are strange, I think they are wonderful little treasures that would go along with my collections of keys and things I’ve found in antique stores.

No pictures yet, since Taihei's face is still healing from his accident (Though it's been healing really fast). Also, I'll be making a new photobucket account since my first one is already nearly full.