Japanese students on a newly-resumed high school exchange program in Palm Beach County have spoken of their concerns for Japanese victims as tremors continue to hit their home country following a deadly earthquake.
The eight teenagers, who hail from the historic city of Kyoto, are spending two weeks at Jupiter Community High School where they will study Florida’s natural environment along with other scientific and cultural subjects.
But as they made an initial presentation to host families this week in Delray Beach about Japanese art, culture and environmental issues, the New Year’s Day earthquake was at the forefront of the young minds, and that of their American teacher.
They left home just a couple of days after the magnitude-7.6 tremor struck the north-western coastline of Japan. The death toll in the Noto Peninsula has reached nearly 200, with hundreds injured and dozens missing.
Although no major damage was reported in Kyoto, the city was shaken by tremors reaching a magnitude of 4.0, triggering memories of the massive March 2011 quake — a 9.0 which was followed by tsunamis and the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
During an environmental science and culture presentation at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, the county's go-to destination for Japanese arts and culture, 17-year-old Izumi Otono remarked on emergency alert systems used to notify residents in Japan of earthquakes and tsunamis.
Many people in through the country were at home for the New Year’s holiday.
“I was very scared because I felt the earthquake," Otono told WLRN. "The earthquake made me think: 'How can we get information?'”
Jupiter native Erin Noxon, an English teacher who also teaches science at Kyoto’s Sagano High School for more than a decade, helped spearhead the exchange program in 2015. It returned this year after a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic.
Not only were the exchange students thinking about the earthquake, she remarked, they also flew out of Haneda airport in Tokyo — where a fiery runway collision between two planes killed five people on Jan. 2.
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"So, it's a really hard time [in Japan] right now," said Noxon, who is coordinating the trip alongside Sagano High School instructor Ryoko Okamoto.
But the students, Noxon said, used concerns surrounding environmental issues as their source of motivation on the trip.
Naoki Kamada, 17, said he is interested in topics of environmental protection and “rising sea levels hurting people.”
"If climate change happens rapidly, many people will disappear," he told WLRN. “So we must protect them and the animals.”
The students used a projection screen to discuss a range of topics from Japanese rich biodiversity, Zen Buddhist temples such as the Ginkaku-ji and Kinkaku-ji, and traditional events like Danjiri Matsuri Festivals in Japan.
Japanese connection to South Florida
Prior to arriving last week, Noxon said she used Kamishibai — a Japanese storytelling method using cue cards — to teach the exchange students about early Japanese settlers in Boca Raton, such as Kyoto-native Sukeji "George" Morikami, the immigrant farmer and founder of the Morikami who eventually donated the 200 acre land to the county.
Japan’s Cultural Attaché to Florida, Consul Irisawa Kenichiro, joined the students in a show support from the the Consulate General of Japan in Miami.
"We live in an online age," Kenichiro told WLRN. "There are many things we can't understand unless we actually experience through touching and seeing."
Noxon said the exchange program is also an opportunity for American students to learn about Japanese culture outside of popular anime cartoons and manga comics.
It's an opportunity to "learn about how people think about what's happening with the earth and climate change," Noxon said.
"And learn about how other people manage and live in different ecosystems," she said.
Living and studying together
The program is funded by the students themselves. In prior years, students stayed in a house near Jupiter Lighthouse, which is owned by the Bureau of Land Management. But “the program in that respect was not sustainable because it costs a lot of money to travel in Florida without public transit,” Noxon said.
So the program turned to homestay. The students are attending classes and living with host families in Jupiter through the 16th of January.
It's a great opportunity for them to practice their language skills "through that environmental science lens."
"And they live with them in their daily lives and then the students come to Jupiter High School for the regular school day and they stay there," Noxon said.
“I want to know different cultures and their ideas," said 16-year-old Nanami Imai. “So I wanted to join this program.”
As part of the exchange, Noxon said American students from Jupiter High School are also able to travel to Japan, with plans for students to explore Kyoto next year.
Correction: The Japanese exchange students will stay in Florida for two weeks. A previous version said the students were staying for the full semester. We also fixed a few contextual errors.
