Heights High senior Emoni Brown-Bey returned from an 11 month AFS foreign exchange in Japan in mid-February and sophomore Molly Fleischer is leaving for Japan in early March. Emoni’s exchange year was “an amazing experience,” she said as she returns to Heights High for a final semester before graduating and attending college in the fall. Molly is about to embark on an exciting cross cultural adventure in Japan - a place that has fascinated her for several years.
Molly Fleischer and Emoni Brown-Bey (L-R) are AFS Exchange Students. Emoni returned from Japan in mid February, 2015 and Molly left for Japan in early March.
Returning Home, Bringing a New Perspective
When Emoni was in Japan, she lived with a host family in a small rural community and attended a local high school. She learned to speak Japanese, make Sushi, ride a public train and budget her own money. She saw Mt. Fuji, visited Tokyo Disneyland, hiked in the mountains and toured historic Shinto Shrines and beautiful gardens.
While many things are different in Japan, she also experienced many of the universal themes in human life – family love, teen age friends, food and art.
Her family included a mother, father and a teenage brother and sister and seven dogs. “My family was wonderful and helped me so much,” she said. Just a few weeks after she arrived, she went exploring on a bicycle. She was curious and saw many new and interesting things, but she got lost. She called her family and her brother came to meet her on his bicycle. “My host Mom said it was a good experience for me, and it was!” She learned to be more independent and to do things by herself.
The students in her school wore uniforms and part of their responsibility was to clean the school at the end of the day. She participated in many of the school activities and competitions and placed third in the 100 meter dash at the sports festival, was in a flash mob with her English Club and placed third in a Japanese speech contest.
She made many friends in her school and with the other AFS students from all over the world. “It was interesting to hear the students’ ideas about the U.S.” she said. “Many of them thought that gun violence is more common than it is. I had lots of conversations about that.”
Emoni is a gifted artist and one of her favorite aspects of being in Japan was seeing all of the older architecture, shrines and gardens.
She is happy to be home, and is busy with school work, family, friends and applying for college scholarships. “I am very grateful to my family, AFS and the school for supporting me in this journey,” she said. “I came home with a deep love and appreciation for my country and city.”
In the fall, Emoni will study engineering at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
The Adventure Begins
Molly has been looking forward to doing an AFS exchange since she was in middle school. “I am really excited about being in a new community and speaking a new language,” said Molly. Her host family will incude a mother, father, a 12 year old child and three adult children living on their own. Her family lives in a small rural town.
She will take a train to school that has 1000 students.
“There are so many things in Japan that make sense to me,” she said. “The culture is geared to the common good, things are organized.” She is looking forward to experiencing a collective focused culture and also learning more about the language.
For information about hosting an AFS student or sending a student on an AFS exchange, contact Carla Bailey.
Photos From Emoni's Exchange Year in Japan
Emoni and her host family: Father, brother, Emoni, sister, mother and AFS Liaison (L-R). | 
Celebrating Christmas with her host brother and sister. |
It snowed twice while Emoni was in Japan. Very exciting! | 
Emoni with her school friends. |
Emoni learned to play the Koto, a traditional Japanese harp. Here she is playing it at a party. She said that learning to play the Koto was easier to learn because she knows how to play violin. | 
A Shinto shrine. |