My name is Jenny and I did a homestay in America. When I first met my host mother, Mary, she gave me a big hug. I was really shocked because I had never been hugged before, and I wasn sure how to respond. By the time I left America, though, I came to enjoy hugging and being hugged. Shaking hands was also a challenge. My homestay father, Peter, looked at me straight in the eye and squeezed my hand firmly.
Both Mary and Peter wanted me to call them by their first names because they, as Americans, like informality. By using first names only, we felt friendlier towards each other.
