08/12/2007

Japanese Story

Exchange program unites two worlds in four weeks

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
From left, Japanese exchange student Keisuke Yanagisawa, 12, Sarah Townsend, 8, and brother George Townsend, 12, play a Japanese game similar to chess at the Townsend home on the Old Mission Peninsula. Yanagisawa is staying with the Townsend's for about a month as part of the Labo International Exchange foundation.

TRAVERSE CITY — Keisuke Yanagisawa doesn't know a lot of English. But he knows the word "homesick.” And he knows he's not.

Whether he's wrestling with his host brother on the family room couch, folding origami paper into shapes on the kitchen counter or bounding through the Old Mission house to retrieve his electronic dictionary, it's clear the Japanese student feels right at home in northern Michigan.

"The cool thing we've seen is that a 12-year-old boy is a 12-year-old boy no matter where he comes from,” said Susan Townsend, Yanagisawa's Traverse City host with her husband, George.

Yanagisawa, whose first name is pronounced 'CASE-kay,' is among six Japanese students spending a month in the Grand Traverse region as part of the Labo-Michigan 4-H summer exchange. The program, July 21-Aug. 19, matches Japanese students with Michigan children — 4-H members or not — of like age and gender for friendship and discovery.

The students — ages 12-16 — aren't here as tourists or guests, but rather to participate in everyday family life and community-based events, from Friday Night Live to the Northwestern Michigan Fair, said Wanda Repke, extension educator with Michigan State University Extension Grand Traverse County 4-H. The idea, she adds, is for participants on both sides to learn to understand one another through shared experiences.

"Home stays are much more personal and give you the opportunity to really learn,” she said. "When you travel, you see the surface and not really underneath.”

Repke speaks from personal experience. While in their early teens, she and her two younger brothers each hosted a Japanese student and traveled to Japan.

"I discovered early on that if there was one thing we could do if we wanted to change the world it's to get to know people,” she said. "If it's halfway across the world or the community next to you, if you make a friend, it takes away a lot of stereotypes and misperceptions.”

Yanagisawa is from Tokyo, where he said the houses are closer together, the rooms smaller, the trees shorter and the views more limited — and where people walk or ride trains or cycles rather than drive. Besides his parents, he left behind his 8-year-old sister, Shusuke, and his turtle, Sora, whose photos he shared with his host family in an "introduction scrapbook.”

In Traverse City, he hangs out with host brother, George, and a host sister, Sarah, 8. The two boys enjoy playing video and board games — especially Japanese and American chess — shooting baskets and going on family outings like fishing, tubing and boating on the family's 24-foot motorboat, Townsend said. They're also participating in a tennis camp.

"They're almost like brothers,” she said. "They like similar things. Intellectually, they look at things a lot the same way.”

Townsend said that while some of the perceptions she and her family had about Japanese culture are false — Yanagisawa doesn't exchange his tennis shoes for slippers inside the house, for instance — others are right on — at least where Yanagisawa is concerned.

"You think of the Japanese as being very polite. He's definitely Mr. Polite — "Thank you,” "Yes, please,” — in anything he does, which you don't see so much in our culture,” she said. "You also think of the Japanese as being very technically minded, and he's very technologically there.”

But for every difference, she said, there are many more similarities.

"He's a 12-year-old boy. He doesn't like every vegetable, he knows how to tease,” she said.

Natsumi Yamamoto celebrated her 13th birthday in Williamsburg, where she's staying with the Hubbell family. In honor of the milestone, the family took her swimming at a nearby beach, boating on Lake Skegemog and to dinner for pizza. For dessert, they ordered a strawberry — her favorite fruit — Blizzard cake from Dairy Queen, with "Happy Birthday, Natsumi” outlined on it in frosting.

At "home,” Yamamoto and her host sisters, Whitney, 13, and Elena, 11, walk the family's dogs together and play games like Uno and Sorry. They've also attended the movies "Hairspray” and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which had its world premiere in Tokyo June 27.

In return, Yamamoto has prepared traditional Japanese dishes for her host family and painted the word "family” in Japanese on their wood floor. She also presented them with pink and purple kimonos and chopsticks in handmade origami cases and is planning a Japanese tea ceremony.

"She's just a darling girl — very respectful, very kind, very thoughtful,” said Carleen Hubbell.

While communication sometimes is difficult, Hubbell said the family is managing with the help of body language and a computer translation program Whitney learned about through a social studies project.

"We're trying to use our hands more and do whatever we can to ease the communication on both sides,” she said.

Learning languages is a primary goal of Labo, a private after-school organization that also focuses on youth development and cultural exploration for Japanese children and their families, said Hanako Okugawa. Through Labo Party clubs, students learn English through picture books and by acting, talking and singing long before they begin to receive English instruction in the seventh grade.

"We want them to enjoy English, not just study it,” she said.

Besides recruiting members for Labo, Okugawa prepares students for their international exchanges and chaperones them to English-speaking countries. This year she's one of four adults who accompanied 56 students to Michigan, where she's staying with her own host family, the Repkes.

"They're surprised that everything's big — the size of pop, ice cream, and the big open spaces,” she said of her eight northern Michigan charges, including a boy and a girl in Boyne City and Cadillac. "Our country is very small and the population is half the United States'. Everything is crowded, especially in Tokyo.

"They are very happy to be here: blue sky, pretty lakes and few people. That interested them the most.”

Repke said Michigan 4-H has partnered with Labo for 36 years. Besides hosting Japanese students, 4-H also sends its own students to Japan in a reciprocal exchange.

"Fewer kids here go to Japan,” she said, noting that last year only eight students from the state traveled to Japan. "It's a challenge for Japanese friends at that age to host kids because they're studying for school entrance exams. Other barriers are the ($3,000) expense. And parents here are not as willing to let their kids go.”

The Japanese students will say goodbye to their host families on Saturday. Townsend said while she doesn't think she can send her son "halfway around the world,” the entire family is considering a visit to Japan next year.

Meanwhile, she said George will be assigned reports about the country and the things he's learned from Yanagisawa when home school starts again in the fall.

"We've had fun and really enjoyed him being here,” she said. "Quite honestly, I had not thought I'd get to the point where I'd miss him when he leaves, but I will.”