Volunteering & Home Stay in Japan

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

The Nagoya Homestay Volunteer Center arranges homestays to give foreign people, who are genuinely interested in Japan, the opportunity to experience Japanese life and to exchange with a host familiy in and around Nagoya City.

http://www.expohomestay.jp/english/index.html

I have never tried this, just came accross the link by chance.

Perhaps we can share more volunteering info here for Japan.

bodhisamaya Guest

I have had one experience of volunteering in Japan, but I am hesitant to share any detailed information because it was not a good experience.
It was a homeless charity run by a Catholic priest in Kyoto. I stayed at his house for a month and taught English at his language school located inside a church. The thing is, it is not a bad deal if you have no conscience. You teach English maybe ten hours a week in exchange for rent and meals. If you are a college student, he will sign off a semester of college credit as was the situation with my room-mate who was studying Japanese at Indiana University (I think).
A very small fraction of the donations raised actually went to help homeless people. The rest went to support the three (noisy) children of former students who lived with him. I packed my bags and snuck out early in the morning once I realized what was going on.

kyotokanji Member

From: Kyoto Registered: 2007-03-20 Posts: 160

I don't want to sound negative about such a scheme but you have to be very careful about the families that would do this kind of thing. I would say that it is vary rare that a non-English speaking family would participate in such a scheme. These kind of families are participants in the local English circle and the kids go to ECC kids etc. You could therefore risk becoming purely an object for them to practice their English as much as possible. This would therefore become painful.

If it hasn't been mentioned before, i would say that this scheme is better. Anyone had any experiences with this?

http://www.wwoofjapan.com/main/

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Babyrat Member

From: UK Registered: 2008-10-07 Posts: 144

Aye I have done woofing for 3 months with mixed experiences. The wwoof website is great and gives you a very detailed review of each place, so its pretty easy to decide where to go.

I stayed in Biei, Hokkaido for 1 month working at a hotel called, ermm something hermitage (I will try and find the link later) It basically consisted of me being a hotel maid for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. The owner spoke pretty broken english and the rest of the employees didn't speak English and I had very limited Japanese (theres a thread in this forum somewhere of me crying for help while I was at the hotel) It was hard work and not at all rewarding. I also had to look after her runt of a dog which was a pain in the ass that refused to go for a walk (which I had to do twice a day) so I just dragged it instead. The location was beatiful but I hardly got to see it. So I quickly moved on to my next destination.

SASAYAMA, OSAKA (I think)
I spent 2 months here and I wish I was still there. The work consisted of farming and cleaning out a abadoned (the women died 8 years before) house to make it viable for "woofers" to stay there. The farming itself was very rewarding and I learnt alot and ended up nearly being black from all the sun. We (I will get to the "we") would wake up
at 7 and have breakfast for 10 minutres and then set out to work on a farm for 8 hours.

The farming wasn't actually for the owner, he was doing it for old people who could not tend to their crops anymore but needed it to live. He did this in exchange for what ever the farmers could give. Could be a bunch of vegtables to a cooked meal by the farmer. They often payed in this way which was great as their vegtables were so great and the meals were drool worthy.

The boss had a policy that basically said "if you want to go somewhere you can" So people often left to spend a few days away and come back to start working agian, I myself spent 3 days in kyoto. He often took us out on group outings to onsens, concerts, restuants, swimming in lakes, mountain climbing and many other interesting things that you wouldnt normally see (like a local classical concert held in the oldest sake brewery in sasayama.. with free sake!)

But the thing I loved most about this was the people.. At the time I was there. There was 5 english (including me) 3 Japanese 1 american. The community feel was so great I dont think I can even describe it.

*EDIT* Forgot to mention that the sasayama one has 2 blogs (english and Japanese) check them out here if you are interested:
(hardly updated) English: http://www.nou-en-sasayama.blogspot.com/
(often updated) Japanese: http://ameblo.jp/nouen-sasayama/

I will add more if people want to hear it and sorry for my broken english. It may be my native language but I'm awful at making sense and keeping consistancy!

Last edited by Babyrat (2010 March 11, 10:51 am)

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

Wow, that sounds great Babyrat! Thanks for sharing your experiences.

And bodhisamaya, you crack me up with all those stories. You have so many stories to tell

Evil_Dragon Member

From: Germany Registered: 2008-08-21 Posts: 683

bodhisamaya wrote:
A very small fraction of the donations raised actually went to help homeless people. The rest went to support the three (noisy) children of former students who lived with him. I packed my bags and snuck out early in the morning once I realized what was going on.

You know, sometimes I get the impression your life would make for a nice manga

Fuamnach Member

From: UK Registered: 2009-08-08 Posts: 35

bodhisamaya wrote:
A very small fraction of the donations raised actually went to help homeless people. The rest went to support the three (noisy) children of former students who lived with him. I packed my bags and snuck out early in the morning once I realized what was going on.

LMAO Are you saying what I think you're saying?

@ Babyrat: I've heard about this before and forgot about it, but sounds like a good scheme, just that...how much did it help your Japanese?

Babyrat Member

From: UK Registered: 2008-10-07 Posts: 144

Fuamnach wrote:
bodhisamaya wrote:
A very small fraction of the donations raised actually went to help homeless people. The rest went to support the three (noisy) children of former students who lived with him. I packed my bags and snuck out early in the morning once I realized what was going on.
@ Babyrat: I've heard about this before and forgot about it, but sounds like a good scheme, just that...how much did it help your Japanese?

I didn't, hahaha. It's my own fault though as everyone spoke english I got into the bad habit of using just english. If I didnt I would of never got into the situation where a really cute japanese girl asked me what "**** off" meant, in her sweetest voice.

yukimine Member

Registered: 2009-08-01 Posts: 25

Babyrat, thank you for your review. I'm interested in doing some voluntary work in Japan and the wwoof's site seems like a good start. May I ask you some questions?

1) Is wwoof safe enough? I'm a female myself so I'm a bit scared of going alone and live in a place full of people I don't know. Language isn't really a problem for me, but I'm not sure if those host places are all really safe...

2) How much you spent while you stayed at those places? I think the food and housing are free but did you had to pay for anything extra while you stayed there?

3) Do you have any tips for people who want to try it out?

Sorry for asking so many questions but I really would like to hear more about your experience, since I'm planning to travel to Japan too and having the chance to spent some time working with natives seems great.

Fuamnach Member

From: UK Registered: 2009-08-08 Posts: 35

Babyrat wrote:
Fuamnach wrote:
bodhisamaya wrote:
A very small fraction of the donations raised actually went to help homeless people. The rest went to support the three (noisy) children of former students who lived with him. I packed my bags and snuck out early in the morning once I realized what was going on.
@ Babyrat: I've heard about this before and forgot about it, but sounds like a good scheme, just that...how much did it help your Japanese?
I didn't, hahaha. It's my own fault though as everyone spoke english I got into the bad habit of using just english. If I didnt I would of never got into the situation where a really cute japanese girl asked me what "**** off" meant, in her sweetest voice.

Ha, I was afraid of that.
But would you say, if enough effort is made, you can come across enough natives to practice with daily, or is the environment dominated by other volunteers?

Babyrat Member

From: UK Registered: 2008-10-07 Posts: 144

@yukimine

1. I would say its very safe, theres a chance that you will be taken advantage of, in the sense of doing very hard work etc. In the case of being female most of the wwoofers I met were female and none of them said they had any bad experiences with it. What I can do if you are really unsure is recommend the place that I went. Its hard work but you get to experience alot and you will be around nice people, as the owner would not allow any nasty people to stay.

2. This is hard to say as I didnt keep tabs on my spendage but I would say I ended up spending around 35,000 yen in 3 months. But I did go travaling for a bit and I liked to get extra things (£80 worth of sake!). Its very possible to not spend anything, certainly if you go to the more remote places as there wont even be a chance to spend it

The hosts I have been with were quite generous and did pay for special things every now and agian. I even got given 10,000 when I left one host as a thank you.

3. Tips, oo thats a hard one.

Make a list of wwoof hosts that you are interested in and write down all their details on paper before you go. This is due to: If you don't like where you are you can quickly move on to somewhere new. Writing it down on paper makes it more convienant if you are at a place without the internet

This isnt a wwoof specific one but i will recommend it whenever I can!
For the love of god write down the details where you will be staying first and keep it where you can easily access it before boarding the plane to Japan. Japanese Immergration doesn't like you not having the details to hand.. They held me up for over 40 minutes due to me not doing this. (this may just be common sense on most peoples part.. but I wish I knew that before leaving)

I really am struggling to think of tips so I will add more later if any come to mind.

Feel free to ask as many questions as you want. I want to endorse how great wwoofing is!

*EDIT*
@Fuamnach

Oh god yes. My first place was basically 100% Japanese with me going a month without seeing any foreigners. It was so rare to get foreigners there that people would point at me, cross the street if they are heading towards me on the same path, children would chase after me and hide behind lamposts and watch me etc etc (maybe its just me!)

My second place (the one with the losts of english and americans) we were still surrounded by Japanese. Japanese farmers would often visit us and try to talk to us. Locals would wonder what we were doing and try to talk to us. We were invited to a town meeting when lots and lots of Japanese tried to talk to us. The list can just go on.

So basically yes lots and lots of chances to speak Japanese. You could even pick wwoof hosts that dont speak english which are much more common than hosts that speak english, ofcourse.

Last edited by Babyrat (2010 March 11, 6:24 pm)

lazar Member

From: Canada Registered: 2007-12-06 Posts: 103

Wow babyrat, you're really bringing my hope of going to Japan back again! I've been so tight on cash recently, with enough to buy a round trip ticket and to cover minor living expenses, but not nearly enough to pay additional fees the exchange programs in Canada are charging! This sounds like I could definitely afford it! Also, I've been studying Japanese for 3 years in school and would be able to get by with non-english speaking hosts (hopefully!)

One thing though... I'm worried that working on a farm 8 hours a day leaves little time for practicing Japanese, do you often get chances to communicate with natives while working?

Last edited by lazar (2010 March 11, 9:10 pm)

Babyrat Member

From: UK Registered: 2008-10-07 Posts: 144

lazar wrote:
One thing though... I'm worried that working on a farm 8 hours a day leaves little time for practicing Japanese, do you often get chances to communicate with natives while working?

Depends on who you are working with really, if the volenteers consits of all Japanese then, yes very much so. When I was working on the farm you would normaly hear some Japanese shouted across the field to each other, and questions being asked about both languges. Best I can give you really as it 100% depends on who you work with and where you go.

bodhisamaya Guest

Fuamnach wrote:
bodhisamaya wrote:
A very small fraction of the donations raised actually went to help homeless people. The rest went to support the three (noisy) children of former students who lived with him. I packed my bags and snuck out early in the morning once I realized what was going on.
LMAO Are you saying what I think you're saying?

They were the priest's kids if that is what you are asking. The guy even hit on my girlfriend
To be fair to Catholics, I don't think he answered to what ever line of command priests have in that faith.

Jarvik7 Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2007-03-05 Posts: 3946

bodhisamaya wrote:
The guy even hit on my girlfriend

After reading stuff you've said before, I'm surprised that bothers you.

Fuamnach Member

From: UK Registered: 2009-08-08 Posts: 35

@ Babyrat: thanks for the detailed reply I'm encouraged to look into wwoof again.
@ bodhisamaya: At all! Well, I suppose it could be worse

bodhisamaya Guest

Jarvik7 wrote:
bodhisamaya wrote:
The guy even hit on my girlfriend
After reading stuff you've said before, I'm surprised that bothers you.

It doesn't bother me that someone would hit on her. If she liked some guy (or girl), I would encourage her to enjoy herself and call me when they were done. It was just surprising to me a Catholic priest would make advances.

bodhisamaya Guest

ファブリス、
You would have to deal with my newborn's crying at all hours, but you are welcome to our extra bedroom if you make a side trip to Japan. I live in Hirakata, Osaka. It is a 340 yen train fare (20 minutes either way) to the Kyoto, or Osaka, entertainment district.

jino123 Member

From: VENICE Registered: 2009-07-18 Posts: 39

Hello!
Since I'm planning to go WWOOFing this summer in Japan, I think it would be a good idea to add some agricolture related words in my anki.

Any ideas about where to find them?

chamcham Member

Registered: 2005-11-11 Posts: 1444

It doesn't bother me that someone would hit on her. If she liked some guy (or girl), I would encourage her to enjoy herself and call me when they were done. It was just surprising to me a Catholic priest would make advances.

I guess that Catholic priest got tired of molesting little boys......

Last edited by chamcham (2010 April 12, 6:05 pm)

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

@jino : dunno, do a word seach in some JDICT based app, for words using the 農 "agriculture" kanji? Look it up in google.co.jp, use google search's suggestions, look up agriculture on Wikipedia and collect words, look it up on smartfm site? etc etc.

@bodhisamaya: hey thanks I didn't see this topic last time, I'll keep it in mind I'm going to India for 3 months and won't be able to make a side trip of that extent, though I may visit nearby Nepal if I didn't have enough of the Monsoon

yukamina Member

From: Canada Registered: 2006-01-09 Posts: 761

This wwoofing thing sounds interesting. I can't find any info on how you get there. Do you have to pay to fly to Japan, etc yourself?

jettyke Member

From: 九州 Registered: 2008-04-07 Posts: 1194

yukamina wrote:
This wwoofing thing sounds interesting. I can't find any info on how you get there. Do you have to pay to fly to Japan, etc yourself?

i THINK YES, you have to pay for the airplane

ファブリス Administrator

From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

Yeah Most volunteer opportunities will offer something in exchange for your work such as homestay (with a family) or other accomodation, meals, toiletries.. but do not cover any expenses for you to get there and back. That would be too good to be true right ?

Also look on workaway.info for some Japan opportunities (requires membership).

gyuujuice Member

From: USA Registered: 2008-09-24 Posts: 828

@chamcham
That's extremely offensive! Sure the priest acted outside the faith but your are insulting the faith of many faithful people.

@Babyrat
Thanks you for enlightening me on the experience.
As a kid I wanted to be a farmer actually. This sounds quite fun actually.

Do you think this is a hard program to apply for?
宜しくお願いします。

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bodhisamaya wrote:

bodhisamaya wrote:

Fuamnach wrote:

bodhisamaya wrote:

Babyrat wrote:

Fuamnach wrote:

bodhisamaya wrote:

lazar wrote:

Fuamnach wrote:

bodhisamaya wrote:

bodhisamaya wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

bodhisamaya wrote:

yukamina wrote: