By Jennifer Pineda

On March 26, some of my Japanese Plus colleagues and I first interacted with the KAKEHASHI group. Our school, District of Columbia International School, first hosted them. I was paired with Riki, one of the nine boys. Over the course of three days seeing each other on different occasions, we got familiar with each other. On Tuesday and Thursday, they visited our school and then visited Japanese Plus on Wednesday. We also hung out on the National Mall, going to a museum and played sports like soccer, frisbee, and badminton just to have extra time together.

Riki and the other boys were easy to talk to and fun to be around. Riki was an easygoing person and also invested in conversations by asking more questions and wanting to know more. His overall character was very genuine and nice. I’m glad I got to meet him.

I feel as through my classmates and I really made a strong connection with the KAKEHASHI group. I learned a lot from their presentations, like what made a good castle (to make a good castle it should be on a hill and have complex entrances), how to make origami, cherry blossoms (how they also represent the finish of friendships, and how they are short lived but beautiful, etc). I also learned a lot of differences from America and Japan, for example like social media. The US often posts pictures of friends, selfies, and a lot of things we do. Whereas in Japan they often don’t show their faces, often just showing their food and activities. It was exciting to see things in another perspective. For example, how most American foods have cheese on it. Also how squirrels are actually rare to see in some areas.

Sad to see them leave but glad that we met. This exchange was very memorable for me and will continue to encourage me to continue my language learning and my relationship with Japan.