By Mei Kawada
I had a great opportunity to interact with students of Iolani School, a private school for grades K-12 with more than 1,900 students in Honolulu. My experience with the wonderful Hawaiian students was mind-blowing because they were so enthusiastic about learning news things.
The Iolani School students asked the Japanese students who did presentations on Lafcadio Hearn, Iwami kagura, and Japanese dialects many questions. They were very surprised to learn a Japanese custom on Christmas Eve, which is that Japanese spend a romantic Christmas with lovers.
During a Japanese dialect presentation by Shimane students, they volunteered to practice challenging tongue twisters in Japanese. Their willingness to participate amazed the Japanese students. If these opportunities had been offered to Japanese, no Japanese students would have raised their hands to volunteer in Japan.
Iolani students also jumped at trying kendama and koma, which the Yamagata students demonstrated how to play. These traditional Japanese toys are quite difficult to master, but the Iolani students enthusiastically practiced them and some of them quickly succeeded in playing. The positive attitude of the Iolani students was a mind-blowing experience for me. They wanted to talk in Japanese and asked us many questions. They were positive and optimistic. They made me realize that it is important to grab an opportunity to learn if I want to learn something new rather than to wait patiently for an opportunity to be given to me by someone.
