Students from a private school in Japan are in Ceres and Stanislaus County to sample America culture, foods, home life and sights.
Since 1991 students from Japan’s Kyoto Gakuen High School (later the Kyoto University of Advanced Science High School) have made cultural visits to Ceres and Ceres High School.
This year, three different groups of students flew into the San Francisco International Airport, the first on Oct. 9, the second on Oct. 10 and the third on Friday. The first order of business for the 250 students was getting acclimated to the vast time change and the long jet ride over 5,136 miles, nine hours from Japan to San Francisco (the return flight is 11 hours). Each were assigned to reside with host families in the area who will be letting them see what life is like in an American household and in many cases treat them to afternoon trips to local places of interest like Yosemite National Park. San Francisco is a definite stop on their tour.
On their second full day in the country, students were bussed to Shane Parson’s Diamond Bar Arena in rural Ceres where they chowed down to burgers. Principal Kohei Sasai mentioned how his school’s founder visited the Modesto area 130 years ago to work the farms while learning English. He said he is happy that Stanislaus County schools continue to accommodate Japanese students year after year with the only interruption caused by the COVID pandemic.
Just as she has since 2016, retired Ceres High School activity director Linda Cooper coordinated the visits to Ceres, Central Valley, Enochs, Beyer, Ripon, Gregori, Delhi and Pacheco high schools. Cooper also set up the tour of Modesto Junior College, Stanislaus State, Stewart & Jasper Orchards and Diamond Bar Arena.
Only one of the students from Japan spoke limited English at Thursday’s lunch. Junshin Oida said he was struck by the contrast of large openness of the countryside in the Central Valley. Japan is one of the most densely populated nations with an estimated 125 million people on 145,842 square miles. In terms of sheer numbers, Japan has a density of 879 persons per square mile and by contrast the United States, as a density of 98 persons per square mile.
Cooper said she doesn’t see much difference between Japanese and American teens, saying “kids are kids – they just can’t speak English.”
One translator even noted that some of the students have jobs back home at McDonald’s. However, their parents pay the equivalent of $32,000 a year to attend the three-year school.
Aside from the tourist stops, students were eager to go shopping and especially see how American families live.
In 2008, Ceres students made a reciprocal visit
Ceres got involved with exchange visits through Chris Flesuras, a former Ceres administrator, whose wife is Japanese. His son, Chris Flesuras Jr., teaches English at Kyoto High. He arranged several visits of Japanese students to Modesto high schools, and asked Ceres High if they cared to participate.
During their visits to the various high schools the Japanese students typically participate in dances, skits and fun competitions. Cooper’s connection to Don Borges who left a teaching job at Ceres High and later became the MJC school of agriculture dean allowed her to arrange visits to Modesto Junior College where on Thursday morning they competed in building a tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows. They also planted succulents to give to host families since they can’t take them on the plane.
Next year Cooper plans to get the students into the Great Valley Museum and the MJC planetarium.
“Everywhere they go they should get something to take back home,” said Cooper. T-shirts were given at Diamond Bar Arena, goodie bags at Stewart & Jasper.
“They’ve always had ice cream this morning,” said Cooper on Thursday. “They were like wow-w-w-w-w.”
Some of the students – all who were trim – remarked that could be the reason why Americans have a problem with excess weight.
“Our sugar content in our dessert is like three times what their sugar content is,” added Borges.
The students also noted how much larger portion sizes are in the United States versus Japan, which is a nation that depends on rice and fish for nourishment and much less on processed foods.
