Mayor of Nanto City visits Portland

On Tuesday, September 28, JDLI students and staff welcomed Mayor Tanaka of Nanto City, Toyama Prefecture. Nanto City is the home of one of our sister schools, Fukuno Elementary, which has hosted many of our students on the 5th grade cultural exchange. Richmond has also been lucky enough to host groups of students from Fukuno Elementary, and Mt. Tabor Middle School has hosted students selected from junior high schools throughout Nanto. The Mayor was in Portland to reinforce ties between the two cities, and he took time out of his schedule to visit both Richmond and Mt. Tabor. Tanaka-san was impressed by our program, and is looking forward to renewing our student exchanges – hopefully as soon as this spring.

Mt. Tabor students had a chance to sit down with the mayor during class, and again later after school for a small group discussion. The students prepared questions ahead of time, listened to the mayor’s thoughts about the cultural exchange program, and answered his questions. MTMS JDLI teacher Matt Bacon-Brenes later organized a message board from the students to the mayor, which Mayor Tanaka was able to take back home.

Many thanks to Midori Yamanaka for coordinating the school visits!