Home Away from Home
With the Club set to run its Fukushima homestay program again next year, Members discuss the benefits of a weekend welcome.
When the Sipes family arrived for the welcome ceremony in the Winter Garden, they weren’t sure what to expect.
They’d never hosted visiting students before, but one month prior, Steven, Nobue and their sons, Yuta and Shota, penned a letter for the two junior high schoolers from Fukushima. They included stories and photos and promised to share their home and culture with their guests.
From the crowd, two students walked right up and, in their carefully prepared English, introduced themselves.
“They recognized our kids immediately,” says Nobue Shirai, 35, of Yuzuki and Keito, the family’s weekend guests. “They talked about samurai and our trips to the United States that we wrote about in our letter. It was so natural.”
The Sipes were one of 20 families who hosted 13- and 14-year-old students from Fukushima at the last iteration of the Club’s homestay program in 2018. Members who apply by November 20 can again volunteer to exchange language, cultures and more during overnight stays from January 25.
Though time may seem limited, anyone with their own host family experiences knows how just one encounter in the right environment can have a lasting effect.
“When I was a university student, I stayed with a Japanese host family in Iwate,” says Steven Sipes, 37. “That was a very good experience.”
No great physical distance separates Fukushima from Tokyo, but the nature of the city and the Club’s international community offer near limitless opportunities for students from rural Fukushima to expand their horizons.
After dinner at Café Med (hamburgers for the visitors, of course), Nobue wondered if Yuzuki and Keito had ever seen the hustle and bustle that makes Tokyo’s streets famous the world over.
“They were so excited about it,” Nobue recalls. “We showed them the Shibuya scramble intersection, NHK Studio Park and then some celebrities’ houses, like we were introducing neighbors.”
All the while, they helped the students put their classroom English to real-world use.
“English isn’t just a subject,” Nobue says. “It’s something you can use to communicate with people.”
When Club governor Trista Bridges Bivens opened up her home last year, she was well aware how it could benefit her son, Miles. For many bicultural kids at international schools, direct interactions with fully Japanese peers aren’t as abundant as they may seem.
“It’s important to have this ability of making this kind of connection [across cultures],” says Bridges Bivens, 45. “It’s quite rare for international people to spend time with Japanese people in an intimate setting.”
If their schedules allow, both Bridges Bivens and the Sipes plan on hosting again. To them, there’s too much upside for everyone involved not to give this kind of cultural exchange a chance.
“It can open up your life through that kind of experience,” says Nobue. “For the kids and for your family as well.”
Words: Owen Ziegler
Image: Yuuki Ide
Fukushima Kids Homestay Program
Registration deadline: November 20 | Homestays: January 25–26
