oh don't we all love oppression.

I wonder what my company was thinking when they interviewed my host mom.

Upon first impression she seems untidy, messy, and a bit delusional. She looks lost, as if she’s confined by the laws of this culture, when in actuality, it’s just because she’s incapable of being anything else.

I wonder what my company was thinking when they decided to put me in this house. This dysfunctional, delusional, and wacked up family that takes out all its problems on young foreigners in a country that doesn’t speak a word of English. I wonder what this screwed up company was thinking when they decided that it was alright to put me into a family where discrimination and discouragement was considered necessary to bring up one’s child.

I wonder, and I continue to wonder.

I’ve been here for three months and I can honestly say that my host family experience has been so shit. There is no other word to express this; but my host family has been utterly shit. They haven’t been nice to me at all, and when they do, it’s only really because they want something in return.

I’ve been branded a liar, a deceiver, a two faced foreigner, stupid, idiotic, and also ugly. On what basis does a company select a family like this? In fact, this family shouldn’t even be a family. I feel sorry for their little girl; having parents that have the most screwed up thinking and a mom that is so unforgiving and quick to anger and slow to any form of good in her life? Poor, poor kid.

I wonder what my company has been thinking, by selecting families over and over again that continue to give problems to all the teenagers that are their customers in the first place.

Don’t they realize, that without us, their stupid company wouldn’t even exist in the first place? Do they not understand that without the exchange student, there would be no family? Do they not understand?

My company is one of the worst companies to ever grace the face of this planet; if not THE worst ever. Let me explain why. 

First, they call themselves “World Youth Society”, WYS, for short, and yet they cater to only the families that ‘take on the poor idiotic foreign kids’, and automatically assume that whatever the host families decides is right- no matter how ridiculous and stupid they may be.

For example; the umbrella. 

Oh, God bless that Mickey Mouse Umbrella. 

My host parents lent me an umbrella, and I left it at school by accident. Long story short, it broke. It broke, and I had no idea who broke it, nor do I give a shit, really, it’s just an umbrella.

But out of obligation, and social etiquette(I would think), I bought a new umbrella for her, to say “hey, sorry your umbrella broke, so here’s a new one for ya.”

If I was anybody; a delusional host mom, a screwed up host dad, I would be thankful. I would think, “wow, gee, you didn’t needa buy me a new umbrella! Thanks so much”

But no. This was not the case. My host mom proceeded to make just about the hugest fuss about this umbrella, you would think that because the umbrella broke, so did her family. Unfortunately, her family has already broken long, LONG before this stupid umbrella even did, so I do not know what the hell she’s complaining about. She claimed that she wanted me to SHOW the broken umbrella to her.

Now, lady. Oh, sweet lost lady, you poor child you. I just feel so sorry for you now.

In what universe, does someone DO that?

It’s kinda like, “oh gee whiz hon’, I kinda broke your precious lil’ mickey mouse umbrella but in life, shit happens ya know? So here ya go. Broken umbrella just to match your broken home”

She didn’t get my gesture. My gesture of kindness ,and concern. And guess who didn’t understand it either? My LOVELY company. They too, think I should have brought back a broken umbrella to show it to my host mom; and then proceed to apologize a thousand times until I run out of breath and turn purple in the face.

But if it wasn’t for this umbrella, I wouldn’t get this opportunity to get out.

I wouldn’t get the chance, this glimpse of hope that ‘yes, I am getting out of this dysfunctional and retarded family’, and hopefully to a better one.

However, I have my doubts. Look at WYS as a company. Their success rates with selecting host families are so low, if not non existent, I am skeptical and highly concerned about my new host family.

I am not even sure if I have a new host family; all I know is that I am moving out, but to where, per say, and when? Of course, I get zero contact from my company. Of course I don’t. They would rather I writhe and struggle under the grips of my host family, writhing about like a worm, before they relieve me of any of the stress that I have been having these past 3 months. 

The two other exchange students that live with me are also struggling with the concept of this family. I am banned, from having fun, says my host father. And although summer vacation has started, they are not letting me go out this weekend, claiming that my time now is purely to pack my luggages, and to think about the consequences and evil, evil things that I have done.

I just wanna smack them in the face. I just wanna take my huge polka dot luggage, smack them in the face, and that is that. How DARE they? Punish me for what, exactly? For being human? For being foreign? If you didn’t like me to begin with, kick me out earlier! Why did you insist on stealing 3 months of my exchange for your own selfish benefit? I have literally 7 months left in this exchange, and so far, it has been absolutely intolerable because of my host family, and my useless unsupportive company.

What happens now? I do not have a bloody clue. I am literally homeless, but in prison somehow. Somehow, I am on probation? I still have that ‘april-is-a-baka’ meeting tomorrow, and my patience is wearing thin. 

If I do not get out tomorrow; I literally fear for my very life.

Guess where my company comes in with this?

I quote, “well, you broke the rules of WYS you know, and I don’t really know what is happening right now, per say, so maybe, you should just wait to the 19^th, and right now, just please be good okay, you have to try, you signed up on our program…”

WHAT INCOMPETENCY! What rules have I broken? Am I knocked up? Am I on drugs? Am I not doing well at school? Have I not tried my best time and time again to please a family that is intent on my unhappiness? You, as a ‘counselor’, are by far, the worse counselor in the history of counselors to date.  How is that in any way comforting? How is that, in ANY WAY HELPFUL ?!

Just a word of warning. Do not come with my company to Japan if you are EVER thinking of doing an exchange. The sheer idiocrisy, hypocrisy, and utter incompetency and incapability to cater towards cultural differences, picking out host families, and understanding a foreign student is literally bar none to zero. My company will not offer you emotional support. They want you to suffer, and writhe in pain.

I feel threatened to stay in this home. I feel a fear for my life. Sometimes, when my host dad and mom interrupt me while I’m eating dinner, I have to forcefully swallow the tears as I eat because crying is a huge no-no for them. Whenever I get teary, she warns me to stop or else she will get angrier. How is this in ANY way parenting skills at all?

I do not know how I am going to get out of here. Tomorrow, I plan to. Taxi, NZ Embassy, school’s friends homes, anything. I am getting out of this house, and I do not care if they try and stop me. The girl that is living with me described my situation with this one word, that i just thought really matched the situation I am in right now?

And that word, ladies and gentlemen, is oppression.

I do not know how I survived this long, and why I tolerated so much. According to my lovely host parents, they are the one that have been tolerating me, and I beg to differ.

OH, how you have suffered, all those free dinners, and not to mention the free food I buy back for you.

OH how you have endured watching TV while I scrub your toilets and stairs.

OH, the pain, the insufferable pain.

Tomorrow is IT.

I will get out; and I am praying so hard for superhuman strength to lug my luggage all the way down those evil stairs because OF COURSE no one will help me with a 30KG luggage.

OF COURSE NOT. This evil, evil child deserves no kindness.

She is to suffer, no?

So until then; if you do not hear from me, or if my facebook is eerily quiet?

It’s either I died from trying to leave this house, and they shot me or something,

Or maybe, just maybe, I am on my way to a new family that will give me the one emotion that a family should give in abundance, and that is love.

All my love always, although I do not know if anyone would care for such damaged love;

April.