Meet Yo Enami - an exchange student at Greenville High School! She joins us from the countryside of Japan in a city called Wakayama, about a 6 hour drive southwest of Tokyo. Yo is a Senior here at Greenville, but when she goes home at the end of the school year she’ll have about 7 or 8 months of school left to graduate in Japan.
So far, she says she’s loving Greenville, her experience exceeds her expectations! She enjoys her classes, the friends she has made, and especially her host family. And most importantly, it’s nothing like the movie “Mean Girls” that she watched before coming to the United States!
When asked what the biggest difference between public school in Japan and the United States is, she said there were a lot. In Japan, she was not permitted to wear her hair up or wear makeup at school, and students had to wear uniforms. She said she enjoys the freedom to wear what she wants now. Yo also shared that, in Japan, students are not permitted to use cell phones or airpods in school and could not select their own class schedules. However, despite phones being allowed in schools here, she said students are much more engaged and interactive in classes. “They raise their hands more here.” She also shared that people in Greenville are very friendly.
Overall, she’s enjoying the true American experience and hasn’t felt homesick yet. She shared that she enjoys sending photos home to her family about things she does throughout the day. This fall, she played on the volleyball team and she hopes to run track in the spring. Yo said the hardest thing about being a foreign exchange student is the language barrier in classes - her favorite being Child Development in English. When she grows up, she hopes to one day work with kids and possibly live in Europe.
While in the United States, she hopes to visit Washington D.C. to see the Capitol, Connecticut (because she loves Gilmore Girls), Florida to go to the beach, and the West Coast. She recently took a trip to New York City and enjoyed it.
An integral part of exchange students coming to Greenville is finding families to open their homes to youth from around the world. We are currently looking for families who would be interested in hosting an exchange student during the current school year or next school year. For questions, please contact Todd Hilgendorff (hilgendorfft@greenvillecsd.org).