Teen's journey to Japan left strong impressions

Teenagers' journals usually focus on subjects like school and friends. Ben Amendolara, however, wrote this during the summer:

"Today we climbed Mount Fuji! [It] was very calm and relaxing, the way misty clouds tumble into an earthen valley, surrounding you with a cool, effervescent air...."

That poetic entry was the result of Ben's selection as a People to People "student ambassador" to Japan.

The program was created by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 to give U.S. students a chance to experience other cultures.

Ben there

Ben, a parishioner of St. John Francis Regis Church in Grafton and a junior at Berlin Central High School, spent two weeks visiting sites all over Japan with a group of more than 30 teens from upstate New York.

The teens had to raise the cost of the trip. For Ben, that meant "a lot of bake sales. I had to raise $6,000."

Parishioners and friends also sponsored him, donating money toward the trip. Ben said it was worth the work -- and the 15-hour plane ride -- to see everything from the Imperial Palace to Nagasaki Peace Park, commemorating where an atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.

Guest in house

Ben stayed with a Japanese "host family" during part of the trip. "They were very nice," he told The Evangelist.

Despite being in Japan to learn about its customs, "they tried to treat me a lot differently than their culture [would dictate]: They spoke a lot of English; they would sit on the floor to eat, but they would always try to find me a stool."

The family had a son and daughter around Ben's age who taught him how to make a bamboo flute. He joked that it wasn't difficult: They completed half of it before handing it to him to finish.

Cartooning

Temples, shrines and castles were all on the group's sightseeing agenda, but Ben was particularly impressed with a visit to a Japanese anime school.

The American teens got to try their hands at computer animation, and "the students drew everyone anime-style," Ben recalled. "The teacher could draw really well."

He observed that Japanese students "study more every day, and they get a lot less vacation time." He also noticed that, everywhere the U.S. students went, Japanese people would stop them to practice speaking English.

Diary entries

Ben was required to keep a journal of his adventures, and he earned school credit in history for taking the trip. But besides coming home with those rewards and memories, he said he gained other things:

* an appreciation for Japanese culture and for its technology, which he said is "two years farther ahead than us;"

* surprise at how much he had in common with people on the other side of the world; and

* an eagerness to take a course in their language. "I really want to learn Japanese," he noted. "It's so diverse, with all the different characters. Overall, the trip was really good. It meant a lot. It was only two weeks, but I will remember it forever."

(Learn more at www.studentambassadors.org.)

(8/23/07)