By Mr David Coleman, Principal
Recently, we hosted our second delegation from Chiben Wakayama School in Japan. Twelve students and their teacher visited MCCC for a two-week exchange. During their stay, they had opportunities to learn about Australian school life including baking damper, making an enormous intercultural artwork scroll and visiting timetabled lessons (they’re really good at Maths). Similarly, we were also blessed to learn about Japanese culture from them. They kindly taught our younger students how to make origami and they sang some songs. At the All Japan Day, a day for MCCC students of Japanese to be immersed in all things Japanese, our Chiben guests performed the Soranbushi dance and we then tried doing it too. They also worked in pairs to present aspects of life in Japan and these were very interesting and well received by our students who listened attentively. Our guests also had a day out in Port Macquarie, visiting Sea Acres Rainforest Centre and Billabong Zoo.
The major highlight of the exchange is, according to every student, the wonderful homestays they have with MCCC families. Testimony to the close bonds developed in such a short time were the tears shed as they boarded the bus to leave for Sydney Airport early on Sunday. After boarding with lots of tissues, they came off to give their families another farewell hug, only to do it all again for round three. We couldn’t host our international guests without the tremendous support and hospitality of our host families – arigato! Arranging such an exchange requires much preparation and we thank Horsburgh Sensei for the many hours she invested both before and during the stay and thanks to her it was a wonderful success.
In a time of global conflict and mistrust and misunderstanding between peoples, exchanges such as these serve to encourage mutual intercultural understanding for we are all fundamentally human beings, people made in God’s image. In the New Testament, hospitality means ‘love of strangers’ and for our visiting students, they stayed with a family they did not know and our College families showed strangers some love. We are doing our little part to love our neighbours as ourselves.
