What a homestay in small-town Japan is really like

One of the things that’s easy to forget about Japan is that it only started welcoming foreigners openly 170 years ago. As a result, it could be argued that many of its customs and cultural habits – even the modern ones – still seem remarkable to outsiders, from the faux flushing sounds on toilets (added to preserve the user’s modesty) to KFC being a popular place to eat Christmas dinner.
Visitors are delighted and dazzled by the high-tech dynamism of Japan’s neon-lit cities, but can often come away feeling as though they never really found the real pulse of life here. Sure, they spent time in a robot restaurant and replicated the many social media posts of shuffling across Tokyo’s super-busy Shibuya Crossing sandwiched between thousands of locals, but they only end up seeing exactly what they’d expected and experiencing little else.

I’d resolved to seek out the less flashy side of the country. To do so, I joined G Adventures’ new Back Roads of Japan tour, which includes a two-night homestay in Hagi, a UNESCO-listed coastal castle town in the far west of Honshu island that is known for its pottery. Some 44.4% of the town’s population is over the age of 65 (compared with Japan’s already high national average of 28.7%). And in an area where work has become scarce, I was eager for a chance to see how its elder population had turned to tourism as an alternative source of income.

Sixteen families take part in Hagi’s homestay programme. We met some of them in a 300-year-old house in town where samurai once practised their swordsmanship and martial arts on the patinaed wooden floor. I was matched with Akiko Nohara, a bespectacled 78-year-old with an elfin crop of black hair. She shuffled straight over and surprised me with a hug around my waist. After an icebreaker learning to paint our names in Japanese calligraphy, it was time to go home.

Akiko drove us into the countryside, past thickets of bamboo bowing over the Abu River, to a valley of forested slopes. Her single-storey home stood next to a field of cabbages, and tucked beneath the overhanging roof was a rack of drying seaweed and buckets of fermenting plums.

“My husband and father built this house together in 1960 using lumber cut from the mountains,” Akiko explained. She stepped inside, showing me how to lever my shoes off and leave them pointing away from the house, to leave evil spirits at the door.

“Tea!” she gestured, walking off down the hall. I hung back, feeling the tatami (woven grass) mats beneath my feet and taking in the calm, minimalist interior. She soon slid back a pair of shoji (rice-paper room dividers) and placed the tea set down on a low table with a blanket tucked into the wood. “It’s a kotatsu,” she said, motioning for me to sit on my heels and pull the throw over my legs. It was heated underneath and warmed us against the growing cold. Akiko poured the grass-green tea into a pair of handleless cups.

“It’s grown locally,” she explained using Google Translate. I passed her the packet of fruit jellies I’d bought as a ‘thank you’ gift and her eyes creased with delight.

I looked around the living room. In one corner stood a black-lacquered glass cabinet that housed ornate dolls – “They were once my daughter’s,” explained Akiko – and in the other stood a small shrine: a low wooden table with a brass singing bowl, a framed photo and a sand-filled bowl poked with incense sticks.

Speaking into the app, I gestured with my open hand: “Your husband?” She nodded. I told her that I was sorry for her loss.

“Why?” she asked, bemused.

“You must miss him,” I replied.

“Oh no, I speak to him every morning and evening,” she smiled, showing me that life and death in her culture are separated only by the thinnest rice-paper screen.

We moved to the kitchen, whereupon Akiko started pulling fish and cucumbers from the fridge and instructed me to cut a pumpkin into slices. I asked her what it was like to have guests in her home. She pulled out her phone once more and murmured into it softly.
“I started by giving city kids a sample of life in the countryside, then opened to the idea of hosting international guests. I was worried about my English at first, but I like meeting people from around the world,” she nodded enthusiastically.

Being interested in outsiders runs deep in Hagi. For more than 200 years, between 1603 and 1868, Japan was sakoku – literally meaning a ‘chained country’ – where trade was severely limited, foreigners were banned from entering and travel to foreign countries carried the death penalty for locals. This isolation was breached when US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Harbour to establish trade between the USA and Japan in the summer of 1853.

Thirsty for knowledge, a Hagi-raised samurai, Yoshida Shōin, and his disciple, Kaneko Shingenosuke, tried to smuggle themselves aboard Perry’s ship as it was preparing to return to America. They were discovered, returned to land and arrested.

Shingenosuke died behind bars, but Shōin was released on house arrest in Hagi and started teaching at his uncle’s school. Two of his pupils became part of the Chōshū Five – students who disguised themselves as sailors to escape to England to study at University College London (a monument to the five still stands in its grounds). They returned to become central figures in the Meiji government that wrestled control from the shogunate and transformed Japan into a modern nation state. It is a continued source of local pride that, to date, Hagi has been the birthplace of three prime ministers.

“This was the starting place for the new Japan – the Meiji Restoration, as we call it,” explained a lightly bearded Koki Sonoda. We nibbled on seaweed-sprinkled rice crackers in his living room, where a log-burning stove thumped out heat that made us peel off our coats. “Their spirits and minds are still here – we remain outward-looking in our hearts and curious about everything international.”

I’d come to visit Koki, his wife, Rie, and their year-old daughter, Ui, who had moved into a 70-year-old home that they were restoring (an estimated 15% of homes in Japan lie empty as a result of the shrinking population). “The homestay is a trigger for a new ‘revolution’ in Hagi,” said Koki.

Joining us at the table was Miyazaki Takahide – nickname Zaki – the manager of the homestay association. “I have a passion for this programme because I want local residents to share ideas and keep the history of Hagi and its traditions alive, and for locals to be proud of living here,” he explained through translator Akiyama Mitsunori (Aki), whose hair was parted into neat curtains.

The freckle-faced Rie poured out some tea and continued where her husband had left off: “A precious side effect of hosting has been that it has connected us more with the older community members. They teach us about the area’s history and how to host.”

The couple agreed that they had wanted to welcome guests in order for their daughter to recognise different kinds of people. “The money is a bonus,” added Rie, “but it’s the exchange of ideas that’s worth more to us. We cannot travel much, so it’s nice for them to come to us. We see our guests as friends. In big towns, you’re only focussed on sightseeing; here it’s about a deeper connection.”

Akiko returned me to the train station, where I was reunited with the rest of the group. They spoke excitedly of going fishing or foraging for mushrooms in the forest, trying on kimonos and feeling the smooth steel of a samurai sword, and of their hosts crying when it was time to leave.

Canadian tour-group member Scott Dierick told me: “I found my hosts to be welcoming and warm, and even in the short time we had together, you start to feel like part of the family. I was emotional at leaving.”

Anna Hubbard, an American traveller with the group, agreed: “It’s a classic stereotype that Japanese people are shy and reserved. Some may act like that in the public space, but this homestay showed me that’s just not the case. At home, [my hosts were] always laughing and tactile.”

I was reminded of a Japanese proverb that I’d read: i no naka no kawazu taikai wo shirazu (‘A frog in a well knows nothing of the sea’), which warns against being quick to judge or of seeing the world through a limited perspective. What a remedy homestays can be for any ‘frogs’ hidden inside of us. Thanks to our warm-hearted hosts, I would be leaving Hagi with a far more nuanced vision of Japan.

Homestay etiquette

About the trip

The author travelled with support from G Adventures on its 11-day Back Roads of Japan trip, which includes a two-night homestay in Hagi. Transport, accommodation and some meals are included; international flights are not. Departures run February to December. Travellers require proof of triple-vaccination or are required to show a negative PCR test before flying. UK nationals do not require a visa.

Getting there

British Airways flies from London Heathrow to Tokyo, taking 13.5 hours. Reaching Hagi by train requires multiple changes and takes about eight hours. Navigating the train and subway network can be confusing, so download the Japan Transit app to help plan your journeys. Government guidance stipulates COVID-19 masks aren’t required, but many still wear them to protect others. It’s respectful to follow suit.