Over the summer of 2024, I went on exchange to Linden Hall School in Fukuoka, Japan. It was an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience. I feel so fortunate to have met many amazing people, explored the region, and practiced my Japanese language skills!
I arrived in Japan early on a sunny Saturday morning. I was picked up by my host mom and my exchange partner Sona who took me to the school dorms to settle in. There were six other exchange students from Australia at the school for part of the time that I was there. They were able to introduce me to the school and show me around the town that I would be living in for the next seven weeks. Chikushino is a smaller town, 15 minutes by local train outside of Fukuoka, a big port city on the island of Kyushu in the south of Japan. My school was part of a big university so there were lots of college students walking around. As we were foreign-looking, many of the college students loved speaking in English to us and it was fun speaking with them.
Linden Hall is a pretty small school. It has one central building that extends up six floors, which made the daily commute a bit of a leg workout. Despite its small size, the students there are super lively and they were very welcoming towards me. There is definitely a reputation around Japanese high schoolers being quite shy and more reserved, which can be true. Early on, I learned the importance of putting myself out there and being a lot more extroverted. I think that one of the really important things that will make your exchange so much more fulfilling is being willing to be a more extroverted version of yourself! If you struggle to make friends at first, just go up to people and start a conversation, even if it seems scary. Looking back on your exchange, you won’t regret talking to a ton of different people, but you might regret it if you don’t end up talking to anyone.
Additionally, approaching people was challenging for me in the beginning because of the language barrier. Although I had been learning Japanese for more than two years and was conversationally fluent, I was not entirely ready for how little I would understand in conversations with my host mom, grandparents, and others. My host mom knew a little bit of English but we mostly spoke in Japanese and my host grandparents only knew Japanese. They were the sweetest people ever and so patient as I continuously messed up while trying to speak to them in Japanese. In school, I had multiple advanced Japanese classes every day with a few international students. Being in an environment every day where everyone was speaking the language definitely improved my Japanese skills. By the end of my exchange, I felt pretty confident as I talked to grocery store clerks, people on the train, and college students.
My first day of school was kinda nerve-wracking. I had spent my first two days in Japan getting over my jet lag, meeting my exchange partner’s family, and going to a super fun baseball game for the local Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. I gave a short speech (in English luckily) in front of the entire school and got absolutely questioned for saying “soccer” instead of “football” (American English hatred) before they gave me my school uniform. Wearing a uniform to school every day was definitely a new experience for me, but I appreciated not having to pick out outfits in the mornings. We also had different P.E. uniforms, and there were several other dress code regulations that students were supposed to adhere to, such as restrictions on jewelry. Luckily the school didn’t care too much if the exchange students weren’t exactly meeting those rules, so I got to keep my earrings in! I had a bit of a weird schedule for a while but I went to a lot of my exchange partner Sona’s classes like Biology, English, Chemistry, World History, Home Economics, and more. At the dorms, we also had scheduled study time and time in the onsen (Japanese hot springs).
Although I spent a lot of time with my exchange partner and her friends, I was also able to get really close with some of the Australian exchange girls and with the other kids in our dorm. We still keep in touch. After school every day, we loved going to convenience stores like 7-Eleven, FamilyMart, and the big mall Aeon to try out various unique Japanese foods and snacks. We were also occasionally able to go by train to the main part of downtown Fukuoka and we had a lot of fun exploring places there. Many weeks into my exchange, I was really missing Mexican food, so my friend Emi and I bought ingredients and made a somewhat sad attempt at tacos in the dorm kitchen. We had to quickly devour our tacos and run to study time in the other dorm, but it remains a really fun memory.
One thing that I was worried about going on exchange was the food. As a vegetarian, I’ve had experiences traveling in foreign countries where it was very difficult to find options that I could eat. Luckily, not only was the school able to provide daily vegetarian options for me, but my host family was also very accepting and willing to go out of their way to find good alternatives for me.
My host mom Naoko and host grandparents were amazing and extremely welcoming to me. They brought me to the best restaurants, took me on super fun weekend adventures, and took really good care of me while I stayed at their home. Some of the highlights of our adventures include going on a weekend trip to the hot sand baths in Kagoshima, visiting the famous pottery town Saga, and many different shrines. I also got to ride in the passenger seat with the third-fastest car racer on the Kyushu island of Japan for his warmup and victory laps at a car race organized by my host grandpa Jimmy, a former racer himself. We sang a lot of karaoke, ate the best agedashi tofu, went to a summer festival or “o-matsuri,” and dressed up in yukata. I can’t even begin to describe all the fun and amazing things we ate and did during my time there.
I noticed several cultural and familial differences throughout my exchange. For example, while I am used to doing my own laundry, in Japan my host grandma Barbie insisted on doing laundry for me every night I stayed at their house, which was something totally new to me. Also, sometimes if I was running late to school I would just buy a pastry at 7/11 to eat while I walked to school but that’s against cultural norms as it’s considered improper to eat and walk simultaneously. Be prepared for there to be familial or cultural differences in living and roles as a family wherever you go on exchange.
I would highly recommend exchange to every Athenian student as it is something that not everyone is able to do and we are extremely fortunate to have such a great resource and opportunity at our disposal thanks to Athenian. It really is a life-changing experience that isn’t common to get at this point in life. Even if you’re hesitant or the idea seems scary initially, just go for it! Unfortunately, I can’t exactly promise that your exchange will live up to every expectation that you might have, but even if it doesn’t, the experience of independence and living in a foreign country is invaluable. Also, it’s great to have ideas about where you might want to go, foods you might want to try, etc., but don’t set your expectations too high or try to plan out exactly what you want your exchange to look like, because not only will you quickly be let down, it’ll also leave no room for the unexpected and fun things that could spontaneously happen. My host family and friends in Fukuoka introduced me to all kinds of experiences I wouldn’t have found on my own. And it’s crazy to think that I now have a second family on the opposite side of the world. I will forever remember my time at Linden Hall, with my exchange family, and the amazing friends I made there.
The Athenian School Exchange Blog 