Tsubasa Ueda got a rude introduction to Canadian winter with this week’s snowstorm.
“St. Albert is very cold,” said the Japanese exchange student, “and in Japan, winter starts at around Nov. 20.”
The temperature back home rarely gets below minus 1 C, he continued, and there’s no snow.
“He hasn’t seen anything yet!” jokes his host mother, Anne Bradley.
Ueda, 17, is an exchange student now attending Paul Kane High School through the group Global Partners. He’s staying with Alexander Dieleman, who recently came back from a five-month exchange in Japan through that same group.
Ueda was part of the band that played in the school’s Remembrance Day ceremony on Friday – his first experience with the event. Japan doesn’t observe this date, but has an equivalent ceremony in August called Peace Day, which honours victims of the 1945 atom-bombing of Hiroshima City.
“I think it’s very important,” Ueda said of Remembrance Day. “I’m so glad (I got to) play.”
A guitar player and a fan of rock music, Ueda is one of 14 Japanese students staying in Alberta this winter through Global Partners in order to experience life abroad.
“I want to be a teacher and I want to learn English,” he said, so he signed up for the trip.
Dieleman said he went to Japan for the adventure.
“I’ve always really liked learning languages, and Japan has such a unique culture,” he said.
He attended school in the Kyoto region of Japan from March to August.
In addition to being more crowded, Dieleman said Japan was much easier to get around due to mass transit.
“People do rely on cars a lot here,” he said, whereas it’s all about the trains there. “You have to push your way into the trains because it’s so crowded.”
Japanese students typically wear uniforms, Ueda said, and have set curriculums that are light on options and heavy on academics. The teachers are also much more strict than the ones here.
“They don’t say any jokes and they’re always wearing suits,” he said. “They’re always angry at students,” he added, with a laugh.
Dieleman smiled as he recalled experiencing that anger first-hand.
He was really hungry that day so he tried to sneak an early bite of rice from his lunch. The teacher spotted him and smacked him on the back of the head.
Ueda said he had a lot of fun swimming with the Gators Triathlon Club, cross-country skiing with his fellow students, and dressing as film character Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween.
“I really love Paul Kane and Canadian food,” he said, particularly poutine. “I don’t like Japanese food.”
Dieleman said he actually prefers Japanese food, such as matsutake beef, blowfish and fare from the nation’s well-stocked convenience stores.
“You could get a pretty decent healthy lunch for $5,” he said, and anything from hot drinks to corn soup from the vending machines.
“I swear, every 100 metres, there’s a vending machine,” he said.
Dieleman said he’d like to go back to Japan, and recommends exchange programs for anyone interested in new languages.
Ueda goes back home in 10 months. He said he wasn’t sure what he’d miss about Canada when he goes, but said it probably wouldn’t be the winter.
