Sturgeon Composite students will head to Japan this summer after playing host to a group of Japanese exchange students.
About 154 students from Japan’s Yamate Gakuin High School headed home last weekend after spending two weeks attending schools in and around Edmonton. About 28 of those students went to Sturgeon Composite High School.
The visit was part of an exchange program run by Alberta Education and Yamate that’s been going on since the 1960s, said Susan Clegg, a teacher at Sturgeon Composite and a co-ordinator with the program. The exchange rotates between Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary each year and is meant to expose Albertans to a new culture.
The students arrived on April 12 and left on April 26, Clegg said. While here, they stayed with host families, visited West Edmonton Mall and Fort Edmonton Park, and attended classes with host students.
Many were shy at first, Clegg said, but really opened up towards the end of the trip. “The kids get along so well with each other that you’d never know they were from another culture.”
Exchange student Taisei Kitamura, 16, said he enjoyed visiting Jasper National Park with his hosts. “Canada has a lot of beautiful nature,” he said, although it was also very, very cold. (It’s usually 20 C at this time of year back home in Yokohama, he explained.) “Too cold,” he added, smiling.
Kitamura said Alberta was a lot less crowded than Yokohama (population: 3.7 million) and more pluralistic. The people here were just as kind and loving as those back home. “I think Canada is so cool.”
He said he was also surprised that students were allowed to eat in school while studying here – a practice frowned upon in Japan.
Host student Kolton Kobza, 15, of Gibbons, said he was surprised by what he learned of the Japanese diet. “They seem to have fish and stuff for breakfast, whereas we’re more pancakes, bacon and eggs.” Japanese students also seemed to show teachers more respect than Alberta ones did, and didn’t try to stand out in class. “I never realized how different their way of life was compared to the Canadian way of life.”
Host Victoria Barrett, 19, said this was her second time participating in the Yamate exchange.
Japanese students seemed to be more focused on their studies than Alberta ones, said Barrett, who visited the country through the exchange three years ago. “They’re always enrolled in some sort of extracurricular activity,” she said – even during summer break – whereas many students here just skate by on the basics.
Learning about each other’s cultures is the best part of this exchange, Barrett said. “They’re all the way across the world and in so many ways they’re different, but in so many ways they’re similar.”
And it leads to lifelong friendships, she added, noting that she’s still in touch with her guests from three years ago. “They become part of your family.”
The second half of the exchange, where about 100 Alberta students will go to Japan, happens this July, Clegg said.
