CCCHS student going to Japan for exchange program

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When most teenagers will be busy with recreation or a job this summer, junior Jaylan Burch will spend four weeks as a Japanese teenager.

County Commissioners unanimously agreed to give Burch $400 out of the alcohol fund to help with expenses of being an exchange student through a 4-H program. The last time they had donated toward exchange student expenses was in 2005 for Reid Carlson, and they gave him $100.

Burch said the trip will cost him $4,000, and he was raising money by working at Ray's Apple Market and planned to ask other civic organizations for aid, including Rotary. Commissioner Mike Spicer offered to help raise money with a pancake feed.

Burch's family has hosted an exchange student for three years and they have cultivated an ongoing relationship with the family of the first student they hosted. That family will host him when he travels there in Japan in July, Burch said.

Burch has also assisted with orientation of inbound Japanese exchange students at Rock Springs for the last two years. The family has hosted a Japanese exchange student twice.

"Through this process I've made several friends in country," he said. "It's an an amazing, exciting opportunity ... Not only will I be immersed in a culture I've never experienced before, I'll also introduce our culture as well, most importantly, not only will I serve as a representative of the US and Kansas, which is great, but also I'll represent Clay Center."

For four weeks Burch will live in the second-largest city in Japan, attend school, and be surrounded by people who for the most part, don't speak English. Burch's host family speak some English, he said, and English is taught as a second language in school; however he said he doesn't expect to hear much English "except for in English class."

Burch said he doesn't know much Japanese, but plans to beef up on it before he goes and learn quite a bit while there. He has an electronic phrase translator to help him out.

Spicer said he was amazed at how quickly the Japanese students picked up English when they visited through the 4-H program.

"It didn't take them long at all to pick it up," he said.

Additionally Burch said he expects to face additional challenges and stresses, including that of living independently and away from home, and learning how to deal with those stresses.

Commissioners asked Burch to return with a report on the experience.

Credit: Clay Center Dispatch, Kan.

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