Previous Story
Japanese HS students visit Mount Carmel School anew
Japanese high school students challenge Mount Camel School’s female basketball school players during Ikuei Nishi High School’s visit to Mount Carmel on Dec. 7. (Michael T. Santos)
Mount Carmel School welcomed over 150 students from the all-girls Ikuei Nishi High School yesterday, making it Ikuei’s second visit to the school.
Students participated in an opening ceremony as well as games throughout the campus.
Ikuei teacher Rika Shimodama said, “We really appreciate the hospitality of Mount Carmel School. It may be the second time our school has visited but the students participating are actually new ones. Ikuei’s students have been preparing for a performance to show appreciation to the students here. I noticed how MCS acknowledged how hard they worked and I really like that.”
A student at Mount Carmel, Waren Ellana said, “The visit today is pretty good. It’s exciting to meet all of them and just getting to know more about how their culture differs from ours.”
The Japanese students paid out of pocket for the trip to Saipan. However, many students such as Yuki Tsujimura expressed how happy they were about their decision to participate.
“On Saipan, people are very kind to us here and we really like to travel overseas to see places such as this. The students are very interesting and whether or not they can speak Japanese, we can tell just how nice they are,” said Tsujimura.
“In Japan, the Ikuei Nishi High School students don’t really have much opportunities to interact with others from a different country but to come overseas and meet them in person it is a good chance to learn about a different culture as well as teach others our [culture],” Shimodama said.
