Showering in the homestay

Showering in the homestay

 

One common issue that was brought up by the students was that they had trouble understanding that their homestay only had a limited amount of water to use in the shower. This meant that most of the students could only shower for about five to ten minutes. In Japan, it is normally the practice for people to wash themselves using a shower and then soak in a very hot bath for up to half an hour. The water temperature in the bath can be controlled easily by a thermostat situated near the taps and is usually set to about forty three degrees Celsius (by most New Zealand people's standards this would be just too hot). Because of this very hot soaking, people would then be able to move around the home in very loose clothing before they get into bed or retire to a warmer part of the house. Because the students couldn't soak in a bath in their New Zealand homestay, they were always complaining of having a cold shower. When the host parents were questioned about this, they said that the water was hot, but that it always went cold because the students were staying in the shower until the water went cold. It was found that the students were in fact using the shower, not just as a means to wash themselves, but as a means to get warm by trying to soak in the shower instead of the bath because this was what they were used to in Japan. This was why the shower was going cold and was the reason why there were many complaints by the homestay parents saying that their student always used up all of the hot water.

It was also found that the students would be constantly turning the water on and off many times during showering. It is the custom in Japan to firstly quickly rinse oneself with warm to hot water using the shower and then turn the water off. Secondly, people soap up a washcloth and then wash themselves while the water is turned off. Thirdly, the shower (or small bucket filled with water) is turned on and is used to wash the soap off. The next step might be to turn the water off again and proceed to wash another part of the body, for example, hair or face. Again, the same procedure is used – the water is constantly turned off and on. The problem here is that in a typical New Zealand house where a hot water tank is used, it takes a bit of time for the water coming out of the taps to warm up. This is why the students often complain that the shower is cold when in fact, they haven't left the hot tap on long enough for it to become warm. (Turning the shower off and on and trying to adjust the temperature is particularly difficult to do if the homestay has one cold and one hot tap.) Similarly, the term "hot" has different connotations for different people. To maintain the temperature for a long period of time in a Dunedin homestay at about forty three degrees Celcius is difficult. The water would quickly be used up.