NEWPORT BEACH : Japan Teens in Firsthand Look at U.S.

Magazines and television can’t depict what the United States is really like.

That’s why Makiko Nakane said she is here.

Nakane, 15, and six other high school students from Okazaki, Japan, Newport Beach’s sister city, arrived here Sunday as part of a student exchange program that began nine years ago in an effort to promote understanding between the two cultures.

The students spent Monday touring City Hall, meeting with the mayor, cruising Newport Bay and kayaking at the Newport Aquatic Center.

They boarded the kayaks nervously but returned grinning.

“That was very fun,” Chizu Mochizuki, 16, said slowly, her rolled-up jeans drenched. But it was “too difficult.”

Today, the five girls and two boys will sit in on classes at Corona del Mar High School, where they will also watch football practice and have lunch with the school’s student governors.

The Japanese students, who were chosen to come by their high school principals in Okazaki, are learning American customs are quite different from the ones back home.

“The culture is very different,” Rika Asai, 16, said, explaining with hand gestures that greeting with a handshake instead of a bow is one practice she likes.

The students are living with host families for their three-day stay in Newport Beach.

They are accompanied by three chaperons and an interpreter, who are staying at a local hotel.

The students will visit Disneyland and Universal Studios before returning to their homeland on Friday.

Four Corona del Mar High and Ensign Intermediate School students went to Okazaki in June.

While hundreds of Japanese students dream of the chance to come here each year and most are turned down, Newport Beach has trouble recruiting teen-agers to even apply, officials said.

“We’re trying to give students the opportunity to experience different relationships because they need to learn that we have to be concerned about our neighbors,” said Wendell Fish, president of the Newport Beach Sister City Assn. since its inception. “We need to change attitudes.”

“Japanese people are misunderstood,” said Shigeo Nakamura, president of Okazaki International Assn. “We want to change that. That’s why we have this (student exchange program).”

The main thrust of the program has been to promote international understanding among young people “because they hold the future,” said sister city board member Bill Ennis.

“It’s important for youths of all cultures to understand each other, and the only way to do that is to meet face to face,” he said. “You can’t learn it from books.”

The Corona del Mar Kiwanis Club and Newport Beach Rotary Club pay for 80% of the local students’ travel expenses, and the Okazaki city government pays for two-thirds of their students’ expenses. The rest is paid for by parents.