The alternating trips — one year, the Japanese students ages 12 and 13 would visit Marshalltown, and the other, the Iowans would head to Japan — were an annual tradition until the COVID-19 pandemic, so Exchange Director Kris Alman is especially excited that they’re finally back up and running in 2024.

“This is a longstanding relationship. It started in the early 1990s, and it’s a two-year exchange,” Alman said.

Marshalltown’s other sister city is Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi, Ukraine, and Alman said progress is also being made on building a stronger bond between the communities. Yoshiko Nanasawa serves as the adult sponsor and primary translator for the Japanese students, and she has been in her current position for five years.

In 2019, she visited Winterset, which is the other Iowa sister city of Minami-Alps. Located 76 miles west of Tokyo in the heart of the Akaishi Mountains or Southern Alps, the city is home to approximately 71,000 residents. Despite the lack of breathtaking peaks and the substantially smaller population, Nanasawa found herself highly impressed with Marshalltown.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO — On Friday morning, they visited the farm of Tom and Suzanne Mead outside of Marshalltown on Summit Road.

“It’s so beautiful — the nature, the hills, beautiful sceneries and beautiful people,” she said. “People are so kind, and we are surprised to see that all the people come to us and talk to us… All of the people are friendly and so nice to us, and I was surprised to see that. And I think this program is really, really, really great.”

Since the students arrived in Iowa on Monday night, they’ve enjoyed a wide variety of activities with a focus on “some art, some history, some culture and some fun,” as Alman put it. On Tuesday, they headed to Grimes Farm for a hike and welcome from City Councilor Jeff Schneider on behalf of Mayor Joel Greer before touring the Marshalltown Public Library. On Wednesday, they painted rocks at the Marshalltown Arts and Civic Center (MACC) and received a guided tour of several community points of interest from Dylan Does, the tourism director for the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce. They also met and worked with guest artist Missy Sharer-Pieters, who completed a canvas painting.

Thursday was “Des Moines Day” as the group visited the Civic Center and the State Capitol, meeting local Rep. Sue Cahill (D-Marshalltown) in the process and settled an important debate between the two countries: which one has better McDonald’s?

“Yesterday, U.S.A. won the medal,” Alman said.

On Friday morning, they visited the Tom and Suzanne Mead farm outside of Marshalltown to learn more about American agriculture before doing some shopping at Walmart and heading to the YMCA/YWCA, where they played simulator games before heading to Wayward Social for bowling later in the day.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO — The group, pictured with Marshall County Buildings and Grounds Director Lucas Baedke, went all the way up to the clocktower at the courthouse on Wednesday afternoon.

Over the weekend, the kids have more flexibility to make their own plans with their host families before they regroup Monday to tour the police/fire facility and the Fisher Art Gallery at the MACC. From there, they’ll wrap up with swimming and pickleball at Elmwood Country Club.

Come Tuesday, the group will tour Bobcat Academy, Marshalltown High School and Miller Middle School in the morning, attend a farewell lunch and go their separate ways for the time being. The Japanese students will spend the night in a hotel in Des Moines and embark on a lengthy journey back across the Pacific Ocean Wednesday morning.

Jennie Beare, whose son Tyler is one of the local participants in the exchange program, said serving as a host has been “an amazing experience.”

“Monday, I think, for all of us as host families going into it, there was just that little anxiousness going into (it), what it’s going to look like from the Japanese students’ perspective. They meet us, they get in our car (and) off we go,” Beare said. “We don’t speak Japanese, so for our family, my son, they started playing Tic-Tac-Toe. He was helping learn numbers, and it’s just been fun to watch how they connect. We use a little bit of Google Translate, but it’s been a great experience.”

Alman added that the American students have been interested in learning more about Japan and participated in a language lesson with a native speaker. Next year, when they prepare to make their trip to the Land of the Rising Sun, they will meet every other month to immerse themselves more deeply in the country and its history and culture.

One of the benefits of the kids meeting each other is realizing just how similar they really are — Kojro Kanegawa sported a t-shirt with the face of former NBA star Allen Iverson, and many of Japan’s cultural exports like manga and video games are widely popular in the U.S.

“There are differences, but they’re also all kids. So they like music, and they like art, and they like to play basketball, and they like to be silly, and they like Nerf guns, and they like friendship bracelets. And they’re just kids, really,” Alman said.

Tyler Beare, Jennie’s son, offered a similar assessment.

“I thought it was gonna be a lot of different things, but the garbage truck was the same. There’s a lot of things that I thought would be different, but they’re actually the same. That was what surprised me most,” he said.

On the other hand, Kanegawa was surprised to learn that Americans often wear shoes inside of houses, and Fuzuki Nemoto was impressed by the wide variety of breakfast cereals available here compared to Japan. Eliot Heitmann said his favorite moments so far have been fighting with Nerf guns back at his house, and Colin Potter enjoyed playing card games that only require a few words.

The American kids all agreed on one thing: they can’t wait to visit Japan next summer.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.