Chaperoning Teens in "A Very Honest and Safe Country"

By Nodelyn Lago Smith
​
While walking through one of the many sites we visited in Japan, one of our exchange students asked me ‘Who’s parent are you?’ I replied that my kids are all grown up with families of their own.  I am a member of Neighbors Abroad and I wanted to support the Tsuchiura/Palo Alto student exchange program by volunteering to be a chaperone. This was also my first time in Japan. Last March, sixteen students from Tsuchiuria, Japan traveled to Palo Alto and homestayed with their Palo Alto host brothers and sisters. In June, these sixteen Palo Alto host brothers and sisters traveled to Tsuchiuria to visit their Japanese ‘buddies’.  There were four chaperones on this trip: the VP of Tsuchiura for Neighbors Abroad, Evelyn Shimazaki; a parent of one of the students, Songli Wang;  myself and my husband Doug. The Tsuchiura/Palo Alto student exchange program is over 30 years old and required hard work and dedication from the committees in Palo Alto and Tsuchiura. It became apparent to me that this student exchange impacts the entire community of Tsuchiura and the city makes every effort to make the experience as memorable as possible for our students and chaperones.

Read More