Homestay for teens, any ideas?

Question

Hi I'm 15 and I was wondering if there was any almost Home Stay programs that teenagers can go to for a summer in country's like Japan and live with a family and get to know them, not exchange programs during the school year just over a long period of time like the summer. I haven't been able to find anything yet and I'd really like to travel and see knew places. I'd like to Backpack in a few years to see the world but I'm to young right now so this will have to do. Any links or ideas?

Answer 1

Hi Danielle.  I'm a teacher in a junior high school in Hualien County, on the east coast of Taiwan.

There are a number of difficulties in what  you are suggesting.  If you only go for a summer, it will only be like being on holidays.  It seems to me that you would want the experience to be more along the lines of actually living in the new place, and being a part of the community.  

It is a lot of work to even begin to feel comfortable in a new environment, and at the end of a summer you would have done all the work just as it's time to go home again.  Your experience will be either unpleasant, or artificial.  However, I will answer the question that you ask.

I have two ideas:

1.  What about your mother and dad?  People can sign up for a "house exchange" where reputable and honest people from another place will live in your house and you in theirs for a few weeks.  You could have a trip as a family, and share your experience together.

2.  Is your family religious?  Sometimes, church kids go on missions--no preaching stuff, maybe just helping kids learn English and that sort of thing.  Kids from our church in Taipei go to Cambodia to help orphan children, and to Mongolia to help at an English school.

You also said that you would like to backpack in a few years to see the world.  Backpackers see the world, but they do not experience it.  

Life for us, even in a modern prosperous democracy like Taiwan, is very different from life in Canada. Such simple things as taking out the garbage (the truck plays music, and you have to be home to put your trash in the truck) or getting around (I have a motorbike, and the traffic rules are very different) can be challenging.  Even the bathrooms are different.  The sewers can't handle toilet paper--you keep it in a basket beside the toilet and throw it out with the garbage.  There is no shower stall, or even a tub most of the time.  The shower is just a hand-held nozzle with taps in the wall (I like it--it's a snap to keep the bathroom clean)!  You can't drink the tap water.  Cockroaches, associated with filth at home, are a fact of life over here no matter how clean you keep the joint.  The little perishers can fly too!

I take the train to work intstead of a car.  I try to talk to people, in my lame Chinese.  I never eat western food, and I never use a knife and fork.

What about this as an alternative to backpacking when the time comes?  It is really easy to get work as an overseas English teacher.  Instead of just travelling around, you might want to think about working overseas.  You still get to travel if  you want.  My wife and I lived in Taipei for two years, and Hualien for two.  During that time, we have been to China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Viet Nam, and Thailand--more than once to everywhere except Viet Nam.  I'd go back there in a heartbeat.

You sound like a really adventurous person, who would really benefit from an overseas experience.  Show my answer to  your mother and dad, for their comments.