Inspired by a trip she took there when she was in high school, a local woman is headed back to Japan this month to teach Japanese high school students English.
In 2012, Abby Dilick participated in the Hot Springs-Hanamaki, Japan, Sister City program, which allowed her to spend a week in Hanamaki. Coming from a family that likes to travel, Dilick said she jumped at the opportunity to go to Japan.
"I've always kind of been interested in other cultures," she said. "I thought it was wonderful. One of the best weeks of my life."
Dilick said she knew immediately she wanted to return to Japan one day and to return knowing the language.
Part of the appeal of the trip, she said, was that she got to meet people who seemed very different from her.
"Being in the southern U.S., we don't see a lot of different people," Dilick said, noting the area isn't very diverse.
Dilick said after a few days in Japan, she realized how similar the people there are to the people in Arkansas.
"You find they are brought up different, but they are just people," she said.
Mary Zunick, director of the Hot Springs Sister City program, said Dilick's realization is the reason the program exists. "In spite of their differences, people are people," Zunick said.
Two years later, Dilick would once again participate in the program when she served as a host for a Japanese teenager who visited Hot Springs.
After graduating from Lakeside High School, she enrolled at the University of Arkansas and chose Japanese for her foreign language requirement.
Dilick said the Hanamaki trip was the reason for her decision.
After graduating from college earlier this year with a degree in Math, Dilick decided to apply to take part in the JET Program, where people can go teach English to Japanese students in Japan. She was selected for the program and will leave for Tokyo on July 25.
Dilick will be an assistant language teacher working with Japanese high school students in the equivalent of 10th grade in America.
She said she looks forward to the job, and is glad she will get to work with teenagers rather than elementary age children. Japanese students start learning English in elementary school, she said, so she will be working with students who already know quite a bit of the language.
Dilick said she is a little nervous about the upcoming adventure because this will be her first real job, calling it her first "big girl job." She said it will also be the first time she has lived alone in an apartment.
Dilick said she will teach in Japan for a minimum of one year and can stay as long as five years.
Zunick said that over the last decade around 175 Garland County students have visited Hanamaki as part of the student exchange program.
Local on 07/15/2019