After 10 years is it rude to

My question is whether or not after ten years is it rude to contact my old families/friends (I was an exchange student) as I am planning a trip to Japan for a very short stay but would like to try and see a few of them. I don't want to be seen as rude. I have not kept in touch as I no longer speak Japanese (very little anyway).
What do you think?

I see no reason why it should be rude. If you are concerned, you can appologize about not keeping in touch, but that shouldn't keep you from keeping in touch now!

With all due respect to Japanese...

I have been dealing with, and living in, Japan for over 40 years, so I speak with some experience to back me up...

**I** have found that Japanese tend to make friends for a purpose (eg class mates, travel companions, home stays etc) but after that purpose ends so does the friendship. It seems to be considered "inappropriate" to "drag out the friendship for no reason" (you don't have to agree, but can you see my point?).

Not rude per se, just... not the norm. Anyway, this is what I have experienced, and research on the topic shows many supporters of this. Although, I'm sure it's not true about everybody.

With that in mind, I'm not sure what I would do in your situation. It'll be interesting to see what others write here.

I agree with both posts above. I see your point .(guest). I am sure your family would love to see you no matter what. In any case, if I were in that situation, I would contact them (family and friends) briefly stating that I would love to see them, and wait for their reactions. If they didn't reply, just drop it. Please make sure to mention which hotel(s) you are staying at. That way, they don't have to wonder if they will need to invite you to stay over. It's worth a try. You have nothing to lose,

I don't think that the Japanese are any different from other nationalities. Those of us that are old enough have a whole history of people that we were "friends" with and saw all the time etc. Then after they or us moved away we eventually stopped communicating...
heck when I was a kid in Europe my family had distant relatives they seldom saw--- like once every 4 or 5 years---
As a matter of fact and thanks to the internet, I have found that there are only a few families that have the same family name as mine and the few that bothered to answer my inquiries do think that their ancestors come from a certain town. Now my own family think that this town is where our original homestead was.. not only that but these other families and mine are still protestant in a predominantly Catholic area..so we must have been related once. ...
life goes on.. friendships come and go ..Please don't believe that Japanese are unique in that regard.

It may be awkward to reestablish contact without a reason after all this time. Maybe if you're going to be living in Japan for a while, you could drop them a note to say 'hi' and letting them know you're back in Japan. Otherwise, I would just drop it.

I too had a host family 10 years ago and when I moved back to Japan 3 years ago I considered looking them up and reestabilshing contact. However what put me off was the fact that it was they who let the communication dwindle down to nothing and the langauge barrier - even back then only the children spoke any English, and I speak appalling Japanese. In the end I decided whilst it might be nice, there was too much awkwardness involved and it seemed they'd moved on a long time ago.