We have a very competent and efficient AOTS Alumni Association in Sarawak, based in Kuching. The friendly Exco members are always pleasant to deal with.

On November 9-16 last year, I experienced an invigorating autumn in Ichinomiya City, Aichi Prefecture, in Nagoya, Japan. A special homestay exchange program, a joint effort between Japan’s Hippo Family Club (HFC) and Malaysia’s AOTS Alumni Association, brought me there along with eight others from Kuching and five from Kuala Lumpur.

Rain, glorious rain—very much like Kuching weather—seemed to mark most of my stay in Ichinomiya. At times, chilly autumn became freezing autumn. But I loved it! Eight short days, steeped with so much intangible values learned, opened a big door of social and cultural experiences.

HFC is basically about multi-lingualism. Members aim to learn 17 foreign languages: Spanish, Korean, English, German, French, Russian, Italian, Thai, Malay (Malaysian and Indonesian), Portuguese, Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese/Hokkien), Arabic, Hindi, and Turkish. They are encouraged to learn speaking simultaneously, as many foreign languages as they please, in a language acquisition environment similar to that of their first language. Its language banner can be summarized in three Ex’s: experience, experiment and exchange.

Why is the animal hippopotamus chosen for the club name? My host, Atsuko Mori, explained that the gregarious nature and familial instinct of the animal inspired the choice of the name. HFC members declare with pride “I’m a Hippo”.

Atsuko, nicknamed Hati, lives in an elegant modern two-storey house with her husband Shigemi and her son Masanori. Staying in another two-storey house equally elegant right next door are Shigemi’s parents.

The two households share a well sculptured, typical Japanese garden. It’s modest in size but exudes elegance and an air of tranquility creating a sense of spaciousness. Although it was autumn, the garden still displayed an array of dominant greens and a myriad of colors for the eyes to feast on. They also share a pet beagle, Boss. He stays half of the day in his house at the main entrance to Atsuko’s house and the other half in another house at the entrance to the senior Mori’s house.

My first lunch was a pot luck delight at Hati’s house, just very shortly after we got back from the airport. Three lady HFC members (Yuka Mori, Michiyo “Kumari” Sasaki, Hisako Ueno) and their children (Sumire, You, Ren, Hayato) brought lovely home cooked dishes and a male member brought home-grown sweet potatoes. I soon realized that food wasn’t the main agenda when they laced Japanese with whatever English, Malay and Mandarin words they could throw in. And Hiroshi Matsui really got down to business with his notebook and ball pen, jotting down my every answer to his questions.

One day, Theresa Teo (from Kuching) and I were asked to give a cooking demonstration. With the Sarawak pepper—berry, powder and sauces, black, white, green and brown—I brought along and a whirlwind supermarket shopping with our hosts, we amateurishly demonstrated three improvised pepper-laced dishes. And those 20 lovely HFC ladies duplicated our dishes with better results! It was a lunch by and for 22 cooks. The “cooking room” in the community building we used was very functionally designed and efficiently equipped. It was a marvel! Normally, I would feel jittery in a kitchen with small children around. But the toddlers these mothers brought along were angels. They took care of themselves, hardly bothering the adults.

Hati’s dedication and commitment to HFC are unquestionable. I attended all the Club activities I could join in. A typical Club meeting is characterized by speaking and action singing in foreign languages. I watched in awe the Russian bit which incorporated vigorous folk dance steps into the song. In another meeting, they sang “Ikan Kekek” (Malay) with amusing improvised actions, led by Hati. At two meetings, I introduced an adaptation of a song we sing in the Catholic Church by just changing two words: “dalam hippo”. The rest of the lyric from that song fits in perfectly for HFC.

Observing how Hati juggled her time and managed herself as a die heart, super active Hippo, a wife, a mother, and a gracious host, I felt she had to be super natural. How she set her priorities and accomplished things was something I could only envy. When she couldn’t personally take me out, she arranged with her friends to stand in. Mamiko Yoshida and Miki Iwasa dropped me at a huge bookstore and came back for me so that I could be safely brought back to Hati. Mamiko and Reita “Luko” Kamimura (heavy with child) took me to the Ichinomiya City Museum. This was the friendliest museum I’d ever visited. I was allowed to take pictures as I pleased, in and around the museum.

Shigemi was a man of very few words. Ask him a question and he would disappear just to re-emerge in no time with a computer print-out. He found out for us that it was the right time to go to Jo-An Tea Ceremony House in Uraku-En, a national treasure only opened to the public four days in autumn and four days in spring. Just the day before I left, Hati drove us—Fuyuko-san (mother-in-law), Fumie Fujii, Masanori and me—to the place. The tea ceremony was exactly the way Hati did it for Mamiko, Reita and me two days before—minus the kimono and the tea room set up.

One sunny day, Hati and her childhood friend Hiroyo Toyoda took me to Gassho Village of Gero Onsen, famous for its hot spring. Gassho is an art and craft village up on a mountain. We took two train rides from Ichinomiya and transferred to a bus from the train station to the Village. I experienced how Japanese efficiency and honesty worked when, on disembarking, I mistakenly gave all my tickets to the ticket collector at the train station. When we had to take a train back in the afternoon, the ticket collector at the station said he kept the return ticket for me. Did I thank my guardian angel!

What I gained and accomplished in eight days amazed myself. Besides those Hippo meetings in four different public buildings, I managed to visit three bookstores in three shopping complexes. I went wild with excitement when I discovered a one-stop craft shop on the way to a shopping complex. There were evening walks, exploring the neighborhood, observing dog walkers, watching students coming back from school, and wondering how those absolutely gorgeous vegetables in the neighborhood plots didn’t get stolen.

Mine was a very enriching eight days of getaway. Everything else considered, my encounters and interactions with these real day-to-day Japanese top the list. If quiet graciousness is the sign of wisdom, then I’ve seen wisdom.