Mitsuho Iida: My Experiences in Deauville

Mitsuho Iida participated in the 2014 Deauville Student Exchange. Her family is Japanese, so this exchange presented a unique experience for both families to share three different cultures: Japanese, French and American.

My Experiences in Deauville, France

My connection with the Lexington-Deauville Sister Cities program is an interesting study in the power of networking. My family and I are close friends with Steve and Cathy Nohe. Over the years that we lived in Lexington, we met and entertained a number of the French interns who lived with Cathy and Steve. They often came to our house to learn how to make sushi. (My family and I are Japanese; we lived in Lexington for six years while my father worked for Toyota.) We even took one of those interns, Cassandre Wilkowsky, with us when we went to Quebec.

During the summer Cathy discovered that Cassandre’s sister, Salomé, had expressed an interest in participating in the high school exchange program. Cathy asked the Wilkowskys and us if we’d like to be an exchange pair. Since Cassandre and my family already knew each other, it was a very comfortable situation. Salomé was also interested in learning more about Japanese culture as well as American culture. Both of us applied to the program and went successfully through the interviews.

The Wilkowsky family was very welcoming and took me to many places during my three weeks there, including Paris. Seeing the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, and all the views of Champs-Élysées was very exciting, and I have lots of great pictures from the trip. I still remember Salomé teaching me how to sing the song Les Champs-Élysées. She gave me a tiny music box of Les Champs-Élysées at the end of the trip. I also enjoyed the food very much, especially French cheese, macarons, and cornichons. As you can imagine, we Japanese also share a love of fresh fish with the people of Normandy. I did learn a lot of French language and culture, and I plan to take French this year in college to continue my progress.

Here in Lexington we showed Salomé many things around Lexington, and we also took a trip to New York City and Washington D.C. I think she enjoyed seeing this major U.S. city very much. Salomé speaks English very well, and she also learned a few things in Japanese. We taught her how to make sushi, too.

Salomé and I stay in touch occasionally via Facebook and Instagram even though our schedules are very busy. I believe we both benefited form our summer exchange, and I encourage all Lexingtonians to take advantage of this fun, educational, and reasonably priced way of learning more about another country. Now I am back in Japan for college, and am planning to study abroad in France. It is exciting to know that we have home in three different countries!

(Salomé・Mitsuho)