Mei Kondo - an international student from Japan - recently entered a speech competition where she reflected on her time at Hillmorton and in New Zealand. Thank you Mei for sharing.

Hello, everyone. Today I’d like to talk about the memorable memories I made in New Zealand. From January of this year, I went to New Zealand for three months to study English and learn about a different culture. To tell you the truth, at first, I really wanted to return to Japan. It was hard for me to overcome the language barrier because I was not good at listening to and speaking English. And there were countless things culturally that were so unexpected and beyond my imagination.

First of all, I found it difficult to get used to the different lifestyle in New Zealand. For example, short showers instead of long nice baths, and meat and potatoes instead of the Japanese food I usually enjoy. I couldn’t understand those differences at first, but I realised shorter showers meant more time with my host family, and not eating Japanese food every day meant I could try the great variety of Kiwi cuisine. I feel that I could develop a bigger heart through recognising and appreciating these differences.

Second, the most precious experience I had is having many friends from different countries, such as Vietnam, Germany, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Samoa, Chile, and, of course, New Zealand. I found that each had their own unique culture. For example, some of my friends were not allowed to go out without their parents because they were Muslim. However, they never resented it because it was a normal part of their lives. I was very surprised to know that, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to put up with that if I were them.

Having so many international friends, I was able to interact with many others who understood the challenges of learning a new language. And we were able to share with each other our different languages. You would think each language would be completely distinct from the others, but surprisingly there were many instances where our languages overlapped.

For example, when I saw a girl who was short, I unconsciously said “chitcha”, which means small in Japanese. Then my friend, who is from Afghanistan, could understand what I said because they use a similar sounding word to say small in their language as well! And, at my homestay, I discovered that, despite his age, my two-year-old host brother and I could enjoy chatting with each other. This was probably because his ‘baby’ English and my still developing English vocabulary overlapped. Finding such similarities among our spoken words became my great joy and adventure.

I met a lot of people during my homestay, and all of them are my treasures in life. I can now say I have many wonderful friends all over the world that I communicated with and built strong bonds with. I could gain the confidence to speak English, and also broaden my horizons. I could discover many wonderful new cultures, which deeply enriched my way of thinking. Thanks to all of the unexpected surprises I came across in New Zealand, this short three-month stay became the most beneficial experience in my life. Thank you for listening to my speech today!