Japanese Students at NPHS

Japanese+Students+at+NPHS

Erickson Monterroza, Reporter

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Ever wonder what it would be like to travel to a country unknown to you with a language barrier accompanying it? On Sunday, November 27, 120 Japanese students from Fuji City came to the United States to answer this exact question.

Two days later, on Tuesday november 29th, the 120 students split into numerous groups visited American schools in New England to experience what American education was like. Of the 120 Japanese students that came to the United States, 41 visited North Providence High School, while the rest were dispersed among schools in Franklin, Massachusetts and Exeter, New Hampshire.

This event came about when one of our teachers, Melissa Caffrey, came in contact with the ADZ Group, a global agency that works with students across the world. The global agency reached out to us to host a group of Japanese students at our school, which previously had never been done before. Knowing this would be a valuable learning experience for both the Japanese students and the students at NPHS, Caffrey accepted their request. Since the Japanese students arriving were 10th graders, they were paired up with sophomores from the two American Studies classes. For the most part, the students were paired up according to their interests. Furthermore, the students were given each others e-mails so as to communicate and  provide some sense of familiarity before the Japanese students actually arrived.

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On the day of this event, all students involved were given a meet and greet breakfast during first period. The Japanese students presented their guides with goody bags filled with candies native from their country. It was a good start, but the language barrier was a problem to be seen throughout the day. NPHS students attempted to use hand gestures and google translate in order to communicate and the Japanese students used their laptop translators. Despite the struggle, all laughed and smiled about it. As the foreigners ventured throughout the school they saw many things that came to their surprise. For one, they found band and other musical classes being part of a regular school day to be odd, as classes such as these are only considered as extracurricular in Japan. Furthermore, they were surprised to see NPHS students moving about the classroom to complete group assignments. Classes in Japan usually are a straight lecture and the students are not able to move out of their seat after class has started. img_0562img_0559

Moreover, since the Japanese students arrived during the time frame of the rice sack baby invasion, they looked in confusion at all the students carrying rice sacks with faces and clothing. But the highlight of the day, according to our visitors, had to be lunch. It was astonishing to them the amount of food provided at lunch. At schools in Japan, lunches come in smaller rations so the larger lunches were a pleasurable surprise. One student even grabbed two trays of food. One of the NPHS students attempted to explain what a chicken patty was to a Japanese student. The Japanese student did not quite understand the compression gesture being made and ended taking a cheese burger instead. There was a complete lack of communication, but as one student exclaimed, “Justin Bieber” was a term everyone understood.

At the end of the day, our kind visitors did not want to depart and nor did the NPHS students wish to say good-bye. It was a successful and awesome day that created many happy memories among the students. The Japanese students were given merchandise from the school as a parting gift. They return home to Fuji City, Japan on Thursday, December 1.  As Caffrey put it, it was a “living history moment.”img_0553