Aorere students in the JENESYS program

Serah in Hiroshima, Japan

My name is Serah Tautaiolevao and I wish to tell you about our AFS (American Field Scholarship) Japan intercultural experience.

There were five fortunate students who were selected to participate in this programme they were Zion Tesese, Fay Leilua, Max Stowers, Joseph Ioane Moana and myself. We were privileged to have been selected for AFS and will treasure the two weeks we spent in Japan, because we now have some unforgettable memories.

The purpose of this trip was to promote peace between countries world-wide and also an inter-cultural experience. Although we would have liked to think of it as a holiday, we knew we were representing our country and especially our school. I was overwhelmed at being selected and honoured that I got the chance to go on this trip

I would recommend you all to apply for the opportunity to take this trip because it will be a once in a life-time experience you will never forget.
 

My name is Fay Leilua and I was one of the five lucky students awarded one of the AFS JENESYS Scholarships to Japan.

Everything about Japan was fun but the highlight of the whole journey would be the home stay. I would say that I am a person who can never stay away from my dad, so staying with a completely different family far from home was challenging for me. I come from a family of five, which includes three brothers and no sisters. One of the many reasons I applied for this scholarship was to experience life with a sister. Lucky for me, I had a seven year old sister in my host family along with a three year old brother and a mum and dad who were in their mid 20’s. My family welcomed me with a cake that had said “Welcome to Japan” and my little brother sang a Japanese song for me. My family took me to many places, such as the Kumamoto castle, Greenland which was a theme park, temples, Mt Aso which was the biggest active volcano in Japan and among the largest in the world. They took me out for lunch and dinner everyday and took me out to many sight seeing places.
 
As part of the home stay we were to experience the Japanese school life. I went to a local high school for three days and were encouraged to join the school activities such as tea ceremonies and sports clubs. My mum was called into work one day so I had to spend a whole day with my dad, the awkward thing about this was that he was only five or six years older than me so I found that weird but we got along very well which was a good thing. Although our home stay was only a week long it felt like I had known my host family my whole life and I still class them as my family.

I would just like to thank our main supporters Mrs Van Etten and Robyn O’Conner for supporting us and giving us this opportunity to experience a different culture and lifestyle. I would also like to leave you all with a few lines from our AFS JENESYS 2010 theme song “Only Flower in the World”. In other words, there is only one of you in the world, all flowers are beautiful but you never see them arguing or fighting with each other - they just stand tall and be themselves. Each of us holds the seed of something different; it is enough to give everything we have to bring out that flower into bloom

Hi my name is Joseph Ioane Moana and I was one of the lucky students to go to Japan on the JENESYS program.

Although spending time in our host communities were unforgettable, touring around Japan took our enjoyment to the next level. We were split into mixed groups consisting of students from different countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Indonesia etc. for the purpose of touring and bonding. Our study tour started in the city of Kyoto on the second day after arriving in Japan. There we visited the Kyomizu-dera temple, famous for attracting tourists to its beautiful mountain side, where meditating and worshipping takes place. The visit ended with a Japanese styled lunch.

The next day we made our way to the city of Hiroshima by bullet train which travelled over 320 km/h where we visited the Hiroshima Disaster Reduction Centre. Here we learnt and saw the best technology and methods on how to deal with natural disasters, such as tsunami and earthquakes as they often occur in Japan. Later that day we headed to the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park, also a tourist attraction. The memorial peace park was built at the hypocenter where the only building to withstand the atomic bomb that struck in 1945 during WWII stood. I enjoyed touring GIFU and I was greeted and welcomed by the GIFU Technical High School 1stXV captain with a haka. I enjoyed our experience in Japan.