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Summer in Japan 1988.

When I decided to go on the YFU exchange, I had a few different reasons than most people. I had lived in Japan until I was 10, and was interested in going back to better understand the culture as a young adult. My childhood was insulated to a point...the foreign community in Yokohama is a tight-knit group. So I spent the summer of 1988 in the Hirakata section of Osaka, far from the atmosphere I grew up in.

My host family was wonderful...but my host sister left for the US right after I arrived, and I was nervous about entertaining myself. Luckily, there were a lot of YFU students living in my area, and our families arranged for us to spend a lot of time exploring Kyoto and Osaka together. Most of the other students were in the same boat...their host siblings had started their own exchanges in the US. We really relied on each other and our host parents for support, and it worked out beautifully.

Now, it's thirteen years later. The most amazing aspect of my exchange is the friendships I developed. One of my dearest friends is someone I met while on my exchange. I've lost track of people over the years...but I feel that the most important learning experiences for me were independence and self-reliance. I can do things on my own - a big lesson for a teenager approaching college. I now work as a Registered Nurse in Sarasota, Florida, where critical thinking and self-reliance are the hallmarks of the job. I lost any of my timidity about the future when I went to Japan. And my life's pattern has been to embrace change and challenge.

Karen Burgess
(karenburgess@aol.com)
Bradenton, FL