Bay County's 30 foreign exchange students study, adapt to American culture

BAY CITY — Lee Li just doesn’t get American humor. But give him some time; the culture shock is likely to wear off.

“Americans like to tell jokes most of the time,” he said. “Most of the time I don’t catch them.”

The 17-year-old from Wuhan China, is one of five exchange students walking the halls this year at Bay City Western High School and one of 30 attending public schools in Bay County.

Aside from the humor, Li has spent his first month in Michigan adjusting to plenty of other things.

“In China, we go to school for 14 hours a day, and six and half days a week. And we only learn some science subjects,” he said. “We don’t learn economic or social subjects. We just learn math, physics, chemistry.”

Many of the exchange students have similar stories about the differences in culture, but say that’s exactly why they signed up to live abroad for an entire school year.

“… I want to experience something new, so, I want it to be different,” said Martine Aasen, 17, of Sandefjord, Norway, another Western High School exchange student. “(I want to) learn new things, a different culture, speak fluent English, (make) new friends.”

All four of Bay County’s public school districts welcomed exchange students this year. Bay City Public Schools has 12 students, including seven at Bay City Central High School. Seven students are attending Essexville-Hampton Garber High School; Bangor Township John Glenn High School has six students; and five students are at Pinconning Area High School.

The students, ranging in age from 15 to 18 years old, have traveled to Michigan from all over the world, including 14 from Asia, a dozen from Europe, three from South America and one from Africa.

Six of the students are from Germany, five are from China and four are from Thailand — the three most represented countries.

Eighteen are girls, 12 are boys.

For some, getting here wasn’t easy.

Olya Kotlyarska, 16, of Kremenets, Ukraine, competed with nearly 9,000 Ukranians for her spot. Only 250 people made the cut.

Kotlyarska, who is attending Garber High School, says she is grateful to have been selected.

“People here are really, really nice and the first day of school, I didn’t feel like I was in a different country,” she said. “It was really nice.”

During the year, exchange students live with host families and are encouraged to fully integrate into all family, school and extracurricular activities.

For some, the proposition, combined with homesickness, is a bit daunting.

“I like it here. I like everything I try, but I miss my family and friends in Brazil, a lot, and I need to talk to them, everyday, or I can’t live,” said Larissa Gheler, 16, of Araçatuba, Brazil, a student at John Glenn High School.

Those feelings tend to wane as the year goes on, said Jon McQuinn, a local field director for Youth For Understanding, one of several international exchange programs through which students have arrived in Bay County this year.

“I don’t think they (the students) understand the magnitude of the situation they’re in,” he said. “All the sudden they’re 6,000 miles away from home.”

Even small things, like food and transportation punctuate cultural gaps.

Filipe Reino,17, of Lisbon, Portugal, said he doesn’t care for the cuisine at Central High School.

“At home, I usually eat at lunch meat with some rice or spaghetti with vegetables,” he said. “At dinners I eat fish with rice. And here, yesterday was like the first time I had meat here. We only have … hot-dogs, pizza.”

“Here it’s not so healthy,” chimes in Leonie Kraft, 15, of Bremen, Germany, another Central High School exchange student.

Aasen, of Norway, said she expects to walk to and from school every day, as her host family’s home is just a few blocks from Western High School in Auburn.

“People are thinking, it isn’t very safe if I walk from school to home,” she said. “I’m used to walking all the time. And so, students are driving me home.”

McQuinn said a common shock for European students is the lack of a heavily used public transportation system, and having to depend on host parents to travel.

“They feel bad having to ask for a ride,” McQuinn said. “That’s a big fear for a lot of our kids.”

While most find classes here easy, many are struggling with language barriers and homework.Most of Bay County’s exchange students said they’re still getting used to some American school novelties, such as choosing subjects to study, having sports affiliated with a school and changing classrooms.

“I have to do extra work because English is a foreign language, and some words I don’t know,” said Yao Yu, 16, of Beijing, China. “I have to translate all of them. I don’t know what the teacher asks us to do, and what the question is about.”

Yu, who goes by the name Iris, said she spends more time on her studies than her American counterparts.

“Maybe other students will spend one hour to do their homework, however exchange students maybe spend three or four times that or more,” she said.


View Bay County Foreign Exchange Students[1] in a larger map

As much as the exchange students learn during their year here, area administrators say it goes both ways.

Tony Bacigalupo, principal at John Glenn High School, said one of the benefits of having students from different countries attend Bay County high schools is the fact that students on both sides can realize that what they have in common outweighs the differences.

“There are things that the students can learn from our guests that you can’t learn from a textbook,” added Allen Atkari, principal at Garber High School. “Students can ask questions and get answers directly from students from other countries.”

And they do ask plenty of questions that make it clear there is much the American students can learn.

Sergey Radevich, 16, of Rudnyy, Kazakhstan, said his peers at Bay City Central wanted to know if he remembers the Cold War, even though he was born in 1995, well after the Berlin Wall fell.

Derrick Yevu, 16, of Accra, Ghana, said some students at Garber High School wanted to know if he rode lions to class.

Sina Porrmann, 15, of Hamburg, Germany, said students at Central High School inquired whether her country is ruled by a dictator.

Another student’s host asked how many days of the week Europeans have.

And Reino, of Lisbon, got the chance to teach a bit of geography to his friends.

“Somebody asked me if Portugal is near Argentina and Chile,” he said.

In the end, exchange programs are all about education, with both sides coming out winners, said Bacigalupo.

“Sometimes, their world view isn’t as big as it should be,” he said of how American kids can benefit.

And as for our guests:

“What I really see is that they get a real life example of what real life at an American school is like.”

http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2011/10/students_of_the_world_come_to.html