Two Kinds of Accommodations

    If you have the experience to travel or study abroad, then you must realize the most important thing you have to take into consideration is the accommodation. You can plan nothing on traveling spots, transportation or food beforehand because you can pay a visit to somewhere sometime without fixed schedule, ask locals about the transportation, cook or eat out when you arrive, but you can not sleep on the bench of the park! As a result, accommodation is crucial to those who go abroad for sightseeing or studying. For students who study abroad, they would often choose either the boarding house or the dormitory at school. You might be curious about the difference between a dorm and a host family. Actually, they are alike at most of the time but we could still tell the difference if we analyze them from the aspects of safety, living habits and culture exchange.

    Firstly, when it comes to safety issue, leaving home for thousands of miles, we must know how to protect ourselves and keep ourselves from potential danger. From my own experience of staying in a host family, I think staying in a host family is safer than a dorm because host families are granted by the government and if we have some serious problems with the home-stay, we can call the related organization for help. They are eligible to treat us as long-term guests so we need not worry so much. In addition, if we encounter some difficulties, we can seek help from our home-parents. Staying in a dorm, on the contrast, lacks safety promise to a certain degree. In the beginning, we are not familiar with our roommates and so we need to be very careful about our own belongings all the time because we never know what will happen.

    Secondly, the living habits part. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” When we stay in somebody’s house, we have to obey the rules. We can not take everything for granted. In our own home, we could do what we like at whatever time point. Nevertheless, in others’ home, we act as guest although we do live in the place. Imagine someone move into our place, we would likewise hope that he can obey our rules as respect. When I was in Canada, I sometimes took a bath late at night. Then, my home-mom told me not to take a bath so late someday because the bathroom is right next to their bedroom and the noise would wake them up. I felt embarrassed on the spot because I saw how ignorant and selfish I was--- putting myself in the center without concerning other people. I really appreciated for her telling me. I learned an important lesson. If we choose to live in a dorm, we have to respect others as well. Due to the fact that everyone has his own habits, we have to give and take to manage a well relationship with our roommates. If the problem irritates us, we need to negotiate with them and try to work out the solution because it affects only personally but publically. It concerns to whoever stays in the same space.

    Lastly, the culture exchange part. In my opinion, I would say this makes the main contrast between staying in a host family and a dorm. The difference between which is the degree of knowing a culture. If we stay in a boarding house, we would recognize and experience the culture deeply. We live in a local home so we have to conform to their habits and in this way, we could blend into the culture gradually. It is a one but deep culture exchange. Staying in a dorm, on the other hand, is a multi culture blending because we will meet students from everywhere and we will experience the so-called culture shock, for instance, the language, the habits and the custom. To sum up, if we try to embrace all the possibilities and broaden our mind to accept new things, I believe either kind of staying--- host family or dormitory will amaze us and give us unforgettable memories.