A Visit from the American School of Bankok
On February 2nd we hosted 8 high school students from the American School of Bankok in Thailand. Most of them had never been to Japan before, and for a few it was their first trip outside of Thailand. Although we didn’t have much time to spend together, it was a great opportunity to get to know each other and share some of our respective cultures.
The American School of Bankok students are mostly in an International Baccalaureate program, so they are quite fluent in English. Our students had to work quite hard to keep up with them! They actually have a special connection to our school in that one of our students (a year 2 high school student) attended ASB for 3 years as a junior high school student to pursue their excellent golf program.
Here are some of the highlights from their visit:
The students from the American School of Bankok gave a wonderful presentation about Thailand and their school. They also brought some beautiful cloth bags and local delicacies to share with our students.
The Thai students learned about “ateji,” and our students gave them a selection of kanji to choose for their name. Then, they could practice writing it using a calligraphy pen.
Our Junior High School students gave everyone a crash course on Setsubun, the traditional Japanese holiday. They even got to eat some setsubun beans! They also tried some traditional Japanese games, such as kendama and koma-mawashi.
Finally, our tea ceremony club took the Thai students through a basic tea ceremony. They were able to try some traditional green tea and Japanese sweets, and a few of them even got to try their hand at making tea.
Thank you to the students and teachers of ASB for stopping by! I hope we can visit Thailand someday to visit the American School of Bankok and get firsthand experience about Thai culture.