Bridging cultures

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Angelique Perez
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AB, Japan --  About 40 American and Okinawan 4th through 6th graders got together August 2 for an annual all-night international lock-in at the Kadena Youth Center. The kids spent the night playing games, sampling American and Japanese cuisine and making new friends. 

The event is the result of a six-year partnership between the local Lions Club and the base Youth Center. The Lions Club helped by recruiting Okinawan kids from a local off-base school to participate while the Youth Center provided the venue and found plenty of American kids eager to take part. 

While the lock-in typically gets off to a slow start, the Youth Center staff led a series of "ice-breaker" activities at the beginning of the evening to make the kids more comfortable around each other, according to Theresa Witschen, Kadena Youth Center manager. 

"In the past, the kids tended to stay a little bit separate at the beginning," she said, "but by morning they'll be doing all of the different activities together, hanging out together, sleeping wherever, or not sleeping at all." 

The lock-in showed that despite language and culture differences, today's kids have plenty in common. 

"It's great to see them interacting," said Ms. Witschen. "Even though they may not always speak the same language, they certainly all understand video games, dodge ball, and Yugioh cards. It's about finding the commonalities with the kids; they have commonalities they don't even know about until you get them together." 

For the Okinawan kids, the lock-in was also a chance to expand their comfort zone. 

"This program provides Japanese children an opportunity to go out and communicate," said Ms. Kazumi Haneshiro, president of the Lions Club. "Usually Japanese children are very shy and they lack in leadership whereas American kids are more outgoing. 
Hopefully from this exchange they will see how active American children are, and I think this will provide an opportunity for the Japanese children to become leaders when they go back to their own school."
Planning for the event began back in February with a committee consisting of five American and five Okinawan youths. They met once a month over lunch and planned the entire lock-in, said Ms. Witschen.
"One month it would be over spaghetti at the Youth Center, and the next we would be at one of the Japanese folks' homes and have tea and Japanese food," she said. "We actually tried out some of the different foods that we have here [at the lock-in]."
In the end, the lock-in was a hit with the kids and succeeded in bringing Americans and Okinawans closer together.
"Kids are kids," said Ms. Witschen. "It doesn't matter if they are Okinawan or American. They want to have fun, and if they can get past that barrier of not knowing the other kids' culture, then they can just hang out together and have a great time."
For more information about the youth intercultural exchange program, please call Ms. Teresa Witschen at the Kadena Youth Center 634-0500.