Sixteen students from Faye Valtadoros’ Japanese class at Clarkston High School will be boarding a plane on Saturday headed for Japan where they will be staying the next two weeks.
“We have a sister school in Chiba, Japan,” Valtadoros said. “I’ve been here 10 years and we’ve had the program even before that, so I just continued it.”
Valtadoros said this is a trip she takes students on every other year. Earlier this year, they hosted about 16 students and teachers from Chiba.
“They came to my class and do presentations on Japanese culture in English. To reciprocate we go there and my students do presentations in Japanese on America and American culture.”
Student Madilyn Mason said this will be her third trip to Japan because she’s half Japanese and has family that lives there.
“This will be my first time going to Chiba and I am really excited to stay with a Japanese family and be immersed more in their culture,” Mason added.
Rachel Wright said she’s filled with both excitement and fear.
“I am going to be speaking Japanese fulltime and (I’ve never done that before), so I will be trudging along,” she said.
“I’m really interested in the culture and really want to practice speaking more and I am really excited for that and excited to stay with my host family,” added Natalie Harshman, who also noted it, is her first time going.
Why the interest in Japanese culture?
Harshman said she originally did a summer camp to learn Chinese, but CHS doesn’t offer Chinese so she did Japanese.
Wright had a similar story.
“I’ve always been interested in Asia and so Japanese was the closest thing I had to anything in Asia in this school,” Wright explained. “So I actually just decided to go for it.”
During the first week on the trip, Valtadoros said they’ll stay in Kyoto, Nara, and Hiroshima “because it’s apart of history.”
“Just travel different temples and shrines,” she said. “The second week we’re with our host family in Chiba and the kids will go to school with their students and present their presentations, which they’ve already created to be practicing in Japanese.”
Wright and Mason who are in the same group will be presenting on old and current fashion styles, while Harshman is concentrating on landmarks, and after school clubs and sports.
“There is a lot, like when it comes to clubs they have like stuff like Kendo and Judo and stuff like that we don’t have, but we have stuff like American football,” Valtadoros said.
“They even have a Mandolin club,” Harshman added. “Who has just a Mandolin Club?”
Valtadoros noted the Japanese school culture is very different than American in terms of structure.
One of the differences is students stay in the classroom and the teachers rotate from class to class.
“The buildings are pre-World War II,” she said. “So if there is air conditioning they put it in at a later date.”
Valtadoros said her mother made her take Japanese when she was in high school at Utica Ford.
“I hated it, but after getting into it and going to Japan my senior year, I fell in love with it,” she added.
Valtadoros said she went to Eastern Michigan University to get her degree, but in the middle of her time at college, she decided to take a year off and study abroad in Japan.
“I came back finished my degree and then went back for two-years and taught English and I’ve been teaching Japanese ever since.”