
DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9710310222

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 18   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEWIS KRAUSKOPF, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   60 lines

FOREIGN-EXCHANGE STUDENTS FIND THEIR NICHE IN CITY SCHOOLS

WELCOME TO high school in America - where bands march at sporting events, cheerleaders lead school chants and students wear sweat shirts and T-shirts bearing tigers and hawks.

That's what stands out for new Chesapeake students Kim Freudenberg and Vanessa Reichardt - school spirit.

Back home in Germany, Vanessa and Kim don't see such rip-rah-raying for the football team. But now that they're going to school in Chesapeake, the seniors have been bitten by school pride themselves.

``Oscar Smith is the best school,'' Vanessa razzes Kim in her German accent.

``No, no - Great Bridge,'' Kim retorts.

About 21 students from different high schools and different countries gathered in Great Bridge last Thursday to meet and mingle. The get-together was sponsored by the Great Bridge Women's Club for the foreign-exchange students to, well, get together.

This year's students hail from Germany, France, Thailand, Japan, Spain, Russia, China, Brazil, Finland and Norway.

Jose Aguera from Spain has been struck by the size of his high school - Hickory.

``Bigger schools,'' said Jose, who, like many of the students, find English as their biggest barrier to assimilation.

The international language of soccer, however, Jose apparently speaks fluently. He plays offense for the Hickory team.

Before chowing down on good ol' American pizza at A Place for Girls on Cedar Road, the students were given multicolored T-shirts with various country flags by the women's club. Each student pinned a ribbon on a map of the world.

Most of the blue and red ribbons hung from western Europe, but not all of them, including Minako Nakayama's.

Minako has enjoyed her time at Deep Creek High, where she doesn't have to wear a school uniform like she does in Japan.

``It doesn't look pretty,'' Minako said, meaning the uniforms.

Minako also isn't used to going to different classrooms for her various subjects. In Japan, she sits in one class with the same students while the teachers rotate in and out.

Minako likes the U.S. system because she meets more students. Juliana Rocha prefers the one-classroom system, which is also in place in her homeland of Brazil.

But Juliana has been more comfortable in other venues, like the tennis court, where she played singles for Indian River High.

Juliana was puzzled by other things American. Take fashion. Sure, she wears blue jeans.

``But here,'' she said, ``it's big.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos by GARY C. KNAPP

Minako Nakayama, left, and Misato Ohashi, both 16-year-olds from

Japan, chow down on the teen-agers universal food, pizza, during a

gathering of foreign-exchange students sponsored by the Great Bridge

Women's Club.

Anu Riikka Vahakangas, 18, of Finland pins a ribbon on a map of the

world, connecting her home country with Chesapeake.