Program lets Japanese professionals experience state

Photos by Tony Pierro Yasuko Yamagishi and Yuki Yashiro check out a storage area filled with huge rolls of newsprint at the Charleston Newspapers building in Charleston. The two were on a tour of the building and are in the area as guests of local Rotary club members. Sayuri Kitahara, Yasuko Yamagishi and Chizuru Ishii pause in the old press room at the Charleston Newspapers Building to take photographs. The room now houses rolls of newsprint. Larry Levak, Charleston Newspapers vice president and advertising director, speaks with a group of Japanese business people touring the Charleston Newspapers building. Pictured along with Levak are Chizuru Ishii, Masao Seki, and Yuki Yashiro. Chizuru Ishii, Yasuko Yamagishi, Sayuri Kitahara, Yuki Yashiro and Mosao Seki tour the press room at the newspaper building. The group of professionals first arrived in the Kanawha Valley in mid-April and will leave next week.

An exchange program sponsored by Rotary International brought four Japanese young professionals to West Virginia to experience American life and industry.

While in the state, Yasuko Yamagishi, the head of a Japanese flower arrangement school; Sayuri Kitahara, a school clerk; Yuki Yashiro, a school affairs worker; and Chizuru Ishii, a musician, were accompanied by a Japanese Rotarian, Mosao Seki, who served as the team leader. While in West Virginia, the visitors were provided room and board by local Rotary club members and visited numerous cities and sites across the state.

One of their activities was a tour of the Charleston Newspapers building on Friday.

"My favorite was playing at the Greenbrier with a piano and violin group," Ishii said. "There was no language barrier because we were improvising. We did not need language."

The group was also taken whitewater rafting and visited cities including Lewisburg and Princeton, Seki said. They toured public schools, observed teachers and other professionals and learned about their careers in comparison to their own in Japan.

The largest problem is the miscommunication between the languages, Ishii said. The members of the group began taking English courses in junior high. To be eligible for the exchange program, participants must be proficient in the language of the country they're visiting.

"What I've learned is that the culture, the language, the way of living and fiscal parts are very different," Seki said. "But the people, in their hearts, are the same."

While the contrasting cultures are likely to focus on the differences, they should look at the similarities, which are many, Seki said. He said he is unsure whether to attribute this to globalization and the East meeting the West.

The group of professionals first arrived in mid-April and will be leaving next week, Ishii said. Last year, a team of West Virginia Rotary members visited Japan for a similar experience as part of the same program.

Group Study Exchange is an international exchange program sponsored by The Rotary Foundation, according to their brochure.

Next year, Rotarians in West Virginia will sponsor a group of professional West Virginians for a trip to France in March. Those between the ages of 25 and 40 who have been employed for at least two years in their chosen fields are eligible to apply, according to the brochure.