Today, the Wind Ensemble went to school with the Ichikawa Gakuen high school students! Many of us have been staying in host families with these high schoolers, myself included. I have two host sisters, Kokoro and Nagomi. They are very sweet and taught me how to use everything from the automatic toilet to the train station! My host family is learning English, so they love to speak and practice with me. To me, it’s amazing how with some help from Google translate, we are able to have many meaningful conversations even though we have such different experiences. It shows just how small the world really is, and how kindness and a desire to understand each other and connect is a universal language.

At the beginning of the day, teachers took us on a tour of the school. We went through an English class and a math class in the junior high and then a biology class and an exam prep lecture in the high school. The students here love to say hi to us and wave a lot! We also went into a high school physical education class, where the girls played volleyball and the boys basketball. We couldn’t wait to join in their fun!

After this tour, we learned how to make chopsticks and took calligraphy classes as well. The chopsticks seemed to have simple instructions, but I somehow ended up with one stick narrower than the other.

We used a special tool that has different levels for the wood to lay on, so when we shaved it down, it made a rounder point on one end and stayed square on the other.

Once we made chopsticks, then we went to a calligraphy course. I am left-handed, so this proved to be very challenging! I even tried to see if I could get the hang of it with my right hand, but the strokes take time and practice and patience. We all started with the word “eternal”, and then branched into words we chose from a list. I also wrote “star”, “beauty”, “road”, and “love”. I appreciated how particular each stroke had to be, even if I could not quite make the same effect. Each word had a specific order to draw in, and you could only make each stroke once. Overall, I didn’t quite have the patience and attentiveness to detail necessary to make my words perfect, but I loved the opportunity and experience.

After class, we ate lunch with the high school students. I found my host sister at lunch and was able to talk with her and some of her friends. She had an English vocabulary test today that she was studying for at lunch. Her textbook is shown below.

Following lunch, we went back to the auditorium for a combined rehearsal with the high schoolers, as we will have a combined concert with them this afternoon. My host sister is in the band and plays tenor saxophone, and it’s so absolutely wonderful to be able to get to know her and then get to make music with her and the rest of the students. It’s truly an unexplainable feeling to connect through music and know that we have been practicing on opposite sides of the world for this exact moment and this concert. This is my favorite part of tour. Not only to we get to play for them, but we get to play with them. I can’t wait to put on a wonderful concert with the Ichikawa Gakuen high schoolers. Stay tuned for more to come!