pays for 40 percent of the student’s airfare while everything else is usually left to the Santa Monica and Fujinomiya students.
Julia Seeholzer lived with Ito’s family during her three-week stay in Japan, a time in which she fell in love with the country and is now considering living there for a few years.
“We loved it,” Seeholzer said on Thursday. “We didn’t want to come home.”
The American and Japanese students have varying levels of proficiency in Japanese and English, respectively. For the most part, the Samohi students said they were able to manage in Japan, thanks to their host students who had studied English for a few years.
With their trusty Japanese-to-English dictionary and electronic translator, the Japanese students have fared well in America, though Samohi student Sepi Shokri said she has had some difficulty in communicating with Ishikawa, who she regarded as being a bit shy.
The Japanese students received a tour of Santa Monica City Hall on Tuesday and met city officials like Councilmember Pam O’Connor, who visited Fujinomiya earlier this year.
“By talking to the adults in Fujinomiya, their children have had a very enriching experience by coming to the United States and Santa Monica families hosting to both broaden their education on many levels,” O’Connor said on Thursday.
CULTURE SHOCK The three Samohi students stayed in Japan from the middle of July to early August, visiting Mount Fuji, riding the bullet train and trying on expensive silk wedding kimonos.
The Fujinomiya Sister City Association even threw a festival in their honor.
Ananya Kepper, who stayed with Yasutake, has studied Japanese since the ninth grade, motivated to take the class in order to avoid French, Spanish or Latin courses.
“I wanted to be able to eat Japanese food in Japan and know what I was getting,” she said on Wednesday.
For the three girls, the biggest shock seemed to be the hospitality in Japan.
“In general, there’s a huge sense of respect for everyone mutually,” Seeholzer said. “That is strongly lacking in America and it was nice to go somewhere where everyone was respectful of each other.”
There was also the unwanted surprise. Shokri said she was freaked out by the size of the spiders in Japan, demonstrating the size of the arachnid by cupping her two hands together.
COMING TO AMERICA Though the Japanese students have had a taste of American life, attending a Los Angeles Dodgers game and visiting Sunset Boulevard, they’ve also experienced a touch of their own culture in Southern California, dining in Japanese restaurants and stopping by the Japanese district on Sawtelle Boulevard.
Conversations around the dinner table have taken an interesting turn for the three Santa Monica families in the past two weeks.
Lynn Robb said she relies heavily on her daughter, Seeholzer, to translate.
“It’s been really a combination of intuition and unspoken things,” Robb said on Thursday. “I’m being careful to speak slowly, and communication improves as we sit together at the dinner table.”
Exploring the city has posed its challenges for the Japanese students.
Both Yasutake and Ito said they found converting currency to be confusing, asking their host friends to make purchases for them, handing them the merchandise and their wallet.
Following their experience in California, which will come to an end on Tuesday, Yasutake and Ito said they would consider living in America, while Ishikawa said he would prefer to remain in Japan.
“The weather is the same here year round,” Yasutake said, listing off reasons why she would consider relocating. “It seems easier to get a job here too.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 24, 2007. Read the original PDF.