Cultural exchange: Japanese students visit Mount Union, Alliance area
ALLIANCE − Smiling from ear to ear, Union Avenue Preschool students were playing with paper planes and cranes they learned to make.
"That was pretty cool," their teacher Lora Lipford told them. "Let's thank our guests."
The kids did.
Returning the smiles were a group of Japanese High School students who are visiting the Alliance area this week. The students − 10 teenage girls − and their two instructors have been participating in a weeklong cultural immersion program through the University of Mount Union.
The girls attend the Christian-based, all-girls Jogakuin High School in Hiroshima, Japan. They are juniors and seniors.
They have been staying with host families and participating in various activities − including teaching origami to preschool children − around the Alliance area. They fly back home Sunday.
"I enjoy talking to many people," 16-year-old Koharu Ogawa said. "Everyone is very kind. I like American food, especially pizza. Pizza is good."
Program returns after COVID hiatus
The Mount Union program started in 2010 with a faculty member, now retired, who attended Jogakuin High. This year's experience marks the 11th time − and first since 2019 − that Jogakuin students have visited the Alliance area.
COVID-19 stopped the program for several years.
Dawn Adams, director of International Student Services at Mount Union, said the program offers a cultural exchange between the Japanese students and people in the Alliance area, and it serves as a campus visit to recruit prospective college students.
"It allows the students to see the campus but it's also their spring break," Adams said. "So it's a unique way to visit campus and experience the American culture. The relationships and the connections they make are lifelong and authentic."
Jogakuin teacher Florence Smith said the program − part of their school's peace studies − helps broaden the girls' minds, opening their views on other cultures, and gaining real life experiences they've read about in books.
"There's a kind of broad picture of what people say Americans are like, right? But to experience that not all Americans are the same, everybody is different, is, I think, amazing for them," Smith said.
Jogakuin school also sends students to other countries, including Cambodia and Myanmar, for similar reasons. 'We're trying to bridge people," Smith said.
Smith said the girls will write a report and present their experience to the rest of the student body after they return home.
The group has done a lot in a week
The girls have taught origami, visited classrooms in Alliance and Marlington school districts, made a presentation on Hiroshima, volunteered at the Alliance Community Pantry and attended a meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Alliance.
At the pantry, they helped pack boxes, fill baskets and bag produce and baked goods for clients.
Adams said the girls and their teachers also saw sights in Canton, Pittsburgh and Amish Country. The other Jogakuin teacher is Yuri Hoshino.
Reach Benjamin Duer at 330-580-8567 or ben.duer@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @bduerREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Students from Hiroshima, Japan, spend spring break in Alliance
