What foreign students can teach host families about the US

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Locals learn just as much about their country as exchange students do

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The sheer size of the burgers in the US can be a culture shock for a lot of people. Photo: AFP

It was Miaofan Chen’s first trip away from her native China. At lunch with us in Denver, she looked so bemused that I had to ask: “Is this the first time you’ve had a hamburger?”

“No,” said the 15-year-old. “It’s the first time I’ve had such a BIG hamburger.”

That encounter with supersized American portions was one of many observations that students from abroad have shared with us. Miaofan, from Hefei in eastern China, was the latest of a half-dozen young people from around the world who’ve called our guest room home. Needless to say, we learn as much from them as they do from us.

Our interest in hosting international visitors comes from our own experiences abroad. My husband, daughter and I returned to the US in 2012 following my two decades as an Associated Press correspondent on three continents. People welcomed us in their hometowns around the world. Even now when we go on holiday, we meet strangers who offer menu recommendations in Brazil or Slovenia, or who help us navigate subways in Moscow or Tokyo. Hosting foreign students lets us pay those debts forward.

Seeing the US through their eyes

It’s also a way to connect with the world from our front door and see our country through another’s eyes.

An Iraqi student who stayed with us for two weeks was surprised to see people in wheelchairs going to work or school in Denver. Not that her own country, wracked by decades of war, doesn’t have people disabled by injury or disease. But in Baghdad, she said, they’re hidden away. She helped me see that I’d taken for granted the progress here for Americans with disabilities.

The State Department-backed Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Programme and local partner WorldDenver kept this Iraqi teen busy meeting with local development groups. Other organisations have taken our visitors to basketball games, to mountain retreats and downtown for scavenger hunts. Often our visitors go to school with our daughter.

But I sometimes think our main contribution as hosts is giving them time to rest and reflect. We share meals and show off Denver, including my favourite view of the Rockies, which happens to be from football fields near my house.

Guests help make pancakes on Sunday mornings. We’ve sent a French student to work out with our daughter’s swim team and a Brazilian to her piano practice. Miaofan went ice skating with us, and handled her first time on the ice with as much aplomb as she’d shown eating a hamburger the size of her face.

English, food and logistics

All our guests knew English well enough for daily interactions. Any young person willing to embark on these trips has the pluck and flexibility to meet us more than halfway when it comes to navigating cultural differences.

But these are teenagers. The one place where courage has failed a guest or two has been at the table. I once Googled “hunger strike” to reassure myself that a particularly picky eater could survive the week on only blueberries and coconut water. And pancakes.

Hosting opportunities have been easy for us to arrange through our daughter’s public magnet school, the Denver Centre for International Studies. Students there can study Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese (my daughter’s choice), Lakota or Spanish and have rich opportunities to experience the world through classes, clubs, travel and hosting.

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