Hooray! We’ve just uploaded our latest podcast. In this Fun Friday edition of the podcast I interview my dear friend and long term resident of Japan Matthew Dons. We talked about his experiences doing a homestay when he first came to Japan. We also go into the dos and don’ts of Japanese etiquette and culture. Knowing that will definitely make your stay in Japan a lot more smoothly!
Listen to the podcast
Download the podcast audio here
You can find out more about Matthew through the following link below:
For more podcasts and information on our Japanese language learning courses go to Learn Japanese Pod
6 replies on “Fun Friday 24: Interview with Matthew Dons”
I’m glad we packed so much useful information into this Fun Friday.
What did we miss? What would you like to hear more about?
That was a really fun episode and thank you so much for letting me interview you.
I don’t think we really missed anything as you spoke in lots of detail about homestays and etiquette in Japan.
Perhaps we could have talked about alternatives to doing homestays such as things like Couch Surfing and Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms.
Also, I wonder if there are any people into tech who would be interested in making friends at Hackerspaces in Tokyo.
We should also record a new episode about martial arts vocabulary!
Hello Matthew!
This is an interesting recording! As a Japanese, the things mentioned in this recording are ordinary and hence, I didn’t pay any attention to them. This recording let me think about them from different petspectives.
Thank you very much for listening to the podcast!
I was always interested in homestay because I thought it would be an amazing insight into cultural norms which would usually be hidden, but I didn’t realise till quite recently how unusual it is to be in someone else’s home in Japan! It makes it even more amazing! Matthew mentioned his host family.. sister “listing things” about him🤔 (I wonder in what context) I guess living with people is a learning experience all round!
Since I’ve not shifted off my home country and gotten too old for homestay myself – I’m just going to tell lots of young people how I think it could be a great experience, and I wish I’d tried it😅 🦉 oh! Sidenote I’ve heard to be careful of agencies sometimes having hugely extortionate prices when they set up a homestay – A friend had a bad experience which put him out of pocket, now they say- if possible find a family through connections(like Matthew did) and pay them directly!