Ryota

Ryota expereinces an American Birthday party

This last week we hosted a Japanese exchange student. This is our second year hosting a student and it is a great experience. I must admit it is a bit out of our comfort zone to have a complete stranger come stay with us, but we have had so much fun with these exchange student. These boys come from a prestigious private school in Nara, Japan. There are about 250 boys that come over for their "graduation from eighth grade" trip. They spend a week in Utah and then travel on to southern Utah and CA. The main point of the trip is for them to experience American culture, practice their English, and specifically see how a typical American family functions (ha ha more on that later;-). The boys are all very smart, very polite, and very normal 14-15 year old boys. The main question I hear about this program is why they would come to UT? Once you start thinking about the requirements, you find the answer: where else can you find 250 host families within a 20 miles radius of an University (that has a large supply of students that speak Japanese)? Furthermore, each family must have a boy in the home between 8-18 years old. Utah Valley is a perfect match! However, I do question whether the boys will really experience true American culture! After their week in America, most of the boys will think that all Americans: drive big cars, have lots of children, and pray a lot.

Last year our student spoke perfect English- we had a great time talking about everything from the driving age in the US to WWII. This year our student Ryota, spoke very little English, but was so much fun. We got along doing a lot of sign language and smiling. He had a wonderful time with the children (he is an only child and so 6 kids was a big change for him) and they love him. Eleven other families in our neighborhood also hosted and it was nice to be able to share carpool duties (yeah, try and explain carpool to someone that doesn't speak English and doesn't even understand that there are other students staying right next door!).

Paul teaches the boys a little Scout pioneering.

Dessert was an expereince. I made apple crisp and served ice cream. American food is way too sweet for most of the Japanese. The boys were polite and tried the food. A few of them liked it. Most of them will be grateful to go home and eat normal food again!