Blair High School: Japanese Exchange Students Return Home



Blair High School’s family grew by 21 recently as they welcomed exchange students from Japan, and after a week as students at Blair and homestays with Blair community families, so saying goodbye was difficult!

A large group of students from Kyoto Girls High School in Japan left Kyoto Feb. 2 to experience life in Pasadena. The girls partnered with students in academies at PHS, Muir and Blair, with 21 attending classes in Blair’s Health Academy and Culinary Arts Academy. While here the girls lived with host families and explored the Pasadena and Los Angeles areas.

The Kyoto students are all seniors about to graduate. Some of the students had traveled outside Japan before, but for many this was their first trip to the U.S. The girls were eager to find out how Americans live but were also nervous about becoming part of a stranger’s family for a week. The combination of American-style hospitality with the considerate and flexible attitudes of the Japanese students was a great success. Host families included Blair students, faculty and community families, and student families included Blair students from grades six to twelve. We wish to thank all those who added a Japanese “daughter” or two for a week.

While at Blair, the students shadowed their student guide through each day’s class schedule, hung out with their student “buddies,” ate cafeteria food and soaked up our winter sunshine. Both the Health Academy and Culinary Arts Academy excelled in providing hands-on learning, as the visitors experienced these firsthand. Some Blair students picked up a few words in Japanese, and others commented they wish they could have a similar experience in Japan. One student admitted the Japanese students were not the only ones who cried, but that they too shed tears when it came time to say goodbye.

Host families had several evenings as well as an entire weekend together with their Japanese students, and many were able to pack in a lot of activities. These included cheering at a youth soccer game, shopping, walking at the Arboretum, attending church, whale watching, visiting the Griffith Observatory, going out to eat, touring the Magic Castle, viewing art at the Norton Simon Museum, watching the Super Bowl, and of course, more shopping. When Blair students suggested going to Paseo Colorado and Old Town Pasadena together after school one day, the visitors didn’t hesitate to accept!

A common impression shared by the Kyoto young women was how things in America are so big! Portion sizes, cars, houses, even shopping carts are so much bigger here. They also felt the welcome they experienced in Pasadena was big. At the farewell event the students expressed their thanks for the kindness shared with them, and bid emotional goodbyes to Pasadena students, school staff and host families.

We thank Ms. Dianne Moore, of Blair High School’s Counseling Office, for coordinating the many arrangements, and shepherding the guests from drop off to pick up each school day. We further wish to thank the Madison Heights talented neighbor Ms. Rosey Bell for creating an authentic ikebana floral arrangement to welcome Blair’s visitors.

 

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