Tsuchiura Teen Trip 2023: A "Once in a Lifetime Opportunity"

By Evelyn Shimazaki

​When our bus pulled into the Tsuchiura community center parking lot on June 14, 2023, we were greeted warmly by the Tsuchiura students and their families, holding up signs of each student’s name. In true Japanese fashion, we were treated to a program with City of Tsuchiura officials and staff as well as the President of Tsuchiura International, Yuko Fujita, who formally welcomed us to Tsuchiura before our Palo Alto students were ushered off to join the households of their homestay families. ​We had been an hour late and feeling weary from travel after visiting the cities of Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Himeji over a period of five days. The excited and eager faces of the Tsuchiura students and their families buoyed our spirits as the long-awaited homestay portion of the trip was finally here. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for Palo Alto students to experience life in a Japanese household, attend a Japanese school, and be immersed in Japanese language, culture, and cuisine.

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​We were four chaperones to ten Palo Alto middle school students. While the students shadowed their buddies and attended classes at various Tsuchiura middle schools, the chaperones had a busy itinerary of meetings and visiting three different middle schools. In each middle school, we were greeted at the school entrance by the Vice-Principal and given a personal tour of the school. For example, we visited a music class where the students, including two of our Palo Alto students, were learning to play the Japanese Koto. In another class, two of our students learned Japanese calligraphy. At the third middle school we visited, the Vice-Principal even helped to serve us a hot lunch. We felt like visiting dignitaries as we ate that lunch in the Principal’s office instead of the cafeteria. Being new to the Tsuchiura-Palo Alto Student Exchange Program, I wasn’t prepared for the warmth, kindness, and friendship extended to all of us. At the end of the homestay, I spoke with some of the parents who hosted our students. They lamented that they didn’t do enough when clearly they had gone above and beyond by providing our students with uniforms, adhering to dietary restrictions, entertaining students on Host Day, and doing everything possible to make their students feel welcome.

Tsuchiura and Palo Alto will celebrate their fifteen-year sister city relationship in 2024. However, the student exchange began in 1993 when parents on each side of the Pacific started the program that endures today. The program has seen approximately 250 Tsuchiura students and chaperones visit Palo Alto, and over 200 Palo Alto students and chaperones visit Tsuchiura. We are fortunate that the program resumed this year after a three-year hiatus during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Next year in March, Palo Alto looks forward to hosting sixteen Japanese students.

A program like this has many moving parts, and we are grateful for the hard work and efforts of the Tsuchiura City personnel, especially Yoshinori Sanno and Kayoko Ozeki, for their part in making these eventful five days in their city a success. We also acknowledge the support of Tsuchiura’s Mayor, Mariko Ando, and the vision of Tsuchiura International’s President, Yuko Fujita, who hosted a lovely dinner for all of us chaperones. Last but not least, we owe a debt of gratitude to the Tsuchiura students and their families, who opened their homes to our students so we could have a program in 2023.