On Thursday, October 17, 50 students and 12 teachers from Seisa High School in Yokohama, Japan visited NVOT through the school’s Japanese Cultural Exchange Program. The event occurred over a one day period where students could participate in various activities facilitating this cultural exchange between America and Japan.

During these activities, Seisa High students experienced life as a Golden Knight–they went on tours given by NVOT students taking Japanese, ate the school lunch, exchanged gifts, and played online games like Kahoot. NVOT students also learned more about Japanese culture, participating in activities like bozu mekuri (a Japanese card game) and learning about Japanese calligraphy. 

Yoko Fukuda, the program’s organizer as well as NVOT’s Japanese teacher, said the students from Seisa High School “enjoyed talking about the daily life of my students and cafeteria school lunch.” 

The Japanese Cultural Exchange Program is not a new addition to the school; NVOT has worked with Seisa High School since 2016 to facilitate this eye-opening experience for students. Although they could not visit during the pandemic, the program was still kept alive through communication over applications like Zoom. Similarly, virtual exchanges between NVOT and Seisa High through a website called Global Classmates have stayed consistent, acting as another way for students to share different cultural perspectives with one another. Meeting these students in person, Senior Hannah Shin says that “the experience was much more interesting because we could actually talk to them face-to-face.”  

The program was not only insightful for the students from Seisa High but also for students at NVOT. Having met Seisa High School students last year through this same program, Junior Justine Koo says, “I was able to meet with Japanese peers my age and I was able to talk about different cultures. It was helpful for us because we were able to actually apply our Japanese skills to people who actually live and use Japanese everyday.”

Fukuda highlights how special this event was for students from both schools, saying that they were able to “respect other cultures that are different from each other and to communicate in Japanese and English, face to face.” Through this exchange, NVOT and Seisa High School students shared a unique cultural experience that they will cherish forever.