Peachy noted that he, Phil Raynes, Ron Hollenbeck,and pesident Vas worked at the Rebuilding Dayton project April 25 helping clean up tree branches in the Westwood area. He said the club's four grant requests have been approved...for the dictionaries and thesauri, water pumps, and Project Read.

News Break: Sabrina Grandhi, daughter of member Raj Grandhi, was presented with the Community Service Award by the Washington Twp. Trustees April 20. The award honors "her dedication, her important contributions to the community, and the superior example of community service that she has set for us all."

Sabrina, who gave an excellent presentation to our club recently, served as vice president of the Centerville High School Interact Club for three years and president this year. She led the successful book drive and helped double the club in size. We congratulate her and her family for such outstanding service as she brings honor to us all.

 

 

Member John Beals introduced one of our guests, Brian Humphress, executive director of the Miami Valley Communications Council. He said he was from Willard, Ohio.

Humphress said the council serves eight communities and offers a number of community services along with handling the public access for cable TV. It handles program activities, joint purchasing and entertainment facilities, etc., for the member communities. 

 

Club member Kim Senft-Paras said she is happy to know her daughter will be a veterinarian by Saturday. She also thanked the city and township for getting the back egress completed for the Woodbourne Library, making access safer for all around. 

Member Mitch Biederman said his son's soccer team was 16th seed in the state soccer cup tournament and had to play the number one team in their first game. Though they did not win, they held their own and only let the Cincinnati team get one point.

City Manager Greg Horn said he and his wife are expecting a new grandchild.

It was noted that in June the Dayton Rotary will be starting a golf league playing nine holes Monday evenings. Members are welcome to join.

 

Dale Berry brought some Washington-Centerville maps to give to Rotarians who wanted them.

Jeff Senney said he and Deb Dulaney plan to run the Dopey 5K, 10K and full Marathon in Orlando when that comes up. They have been running for practice and Jeff said he hopes to be able to keep up with Dulaney, an avid runner.

 

 

Jordan, 24, said he grew up in Greenville, a rural area, and knew nothing about Rotary's student exchange program until an announcement at his high school said students could sign up for the program. He said he had no idea of where he might want to go at first, and that going to Tokyo, Japan, was a huge eye-opener for him. He has been back three times since his original school year there and will be attending Wright State University to get a masters degree in TESOL English...teaching English as a second language. His undergraduate degree is from WSU. 

 He said his first impression of Tokyo was the "funky body odor smell," which he soon got used to, just as he got used to the smell of manure in the corn fields around Greenville. The smell is "the crowded smell" of many, many people in a small space. There are 15 million people in Tokyo, he said. It has 22 percent of all the Japanese population. Ohio has 11.6 million people, so Tokyo is 1.5 times Ohio's population "all crammed together," he said. Some people commute two to three hours to their jobs in Tokyo because there is not enough housing in Tokyo for everyone.

He said Tokyo is 845 square miles, the size of Darke and Mercer counties together.

It would be impossible for all the people in Tokyo to be on the streets at the same time, so they are in buildings and trains.

He said Tokyo has one of the lowest crime rates of any major city and that the people have a group mentality. "They are focused on working together," he said.

In the high school the students stay in one classroom all day and the teachers move from class to class. 
You spend all your high school years in one room, he said. The school days are very long as students are involved in clubs after the school day and the club  meetings last about four hours. There are baseball and drama clubs, tea ceremony clubs, Judo and kendo clubs. He joined a kendo club, (Japanese sword fighting with bamboo swords), he said. 

To get to know others you need to belong to a club, he said.

School goes from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then the club is four hours, so the school day is not over until 7 or 8 p.m., he said. He had a 30 minute commute by train and then a 40 minute walk to school each day.  From 8 to 10 p.m. students do their homework, so school is very stressful, he said. 

To alleviate the stress there are school events twice a month. It might be a school-wide dance contest, a talent show, etc.

It was difficult adjusting to the culture, he said, especially when he first got there and without a real grasp of the language. After a few months with full immersion into the language, it was better, as at first he did not know that high-fiving his teachers was considered rude and he was considered the rude American as it is better to be seen and not heard in Japan. He had offended his teachers. It was also hard being there as during that time he lost his grandmother, and his host father was a problem drinker who would hit people in the family. 

Overall, however, "it made me a better person." He became more confident and able to assert himself, he said. He found some things universal, such as smiling and hugging (though many Germans look at a smile as showing you are not a serious or deep-thinking person)...listening to someone and learning to meet someone at the half-way point. "It helped me find myself," he said.

"I'm really thankful you gave me the opportunity. It has life-long benefits. You become a teacher."

He said the Japanese feel America has kept them under its thumb by not letting them be militarized after WWII. It is a very neat society in that there is no graffiti or beer cans thrown around, he said. 

Students work very hard to get into the university and then they party and drink, he said. They teach to the test in their high schools and do not make critical thinking something of importance, he said.