Franklin revives Japan student trip after pandemic

A cohort of students from Franklin schools were originally supposed to travel to Kuji, Japan in Sept. 2020.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic happened, shutting off virtually all travel between the United States and Japan until last year. The trip was postponed indefinitely until travel restrictions were lifted. Three years later, students from Franklin Middle School and Franklin Community High School will finally make the over 6,100-mile trip to Franklin’s sister city this fall.

Although students from Kuji made an annual trip to Franklin until just before travel restrictions started in 2020, this will be just the second time Franklin students make the trip to Japan, following an inaugural trip in 2015.

The trip will include high schoolers from all grade levels as well as Franklin Middle School eighth graders. Just as students from Kuji visit major cities such as Chicago and New York to supplement their Franklin visit, when the group of 10 students go to Japan, they’ll spend time in Tokyo before taking the bullet train to Kuji. Once in Kuji, the students will stay with host families for five nights, said Greg Moore, a member of the mayor’s committee for the Kuji sister city relationship.

Students will depart Oct. 6 and return Oct. 15, he said.

Moore served as a chaperone during the 2015 trip. Moore’s wife, Tamayo Fukomoto, is Japanese, and the two used to live in Japan. The couple have also helped organize trips of Japanese students visiting Franklin, including stays with host families.

“For me, it was fun to see it through the eyes of other students,” Moore said. “It was really fun watching the students get out of their comfort zone, many of them were traveling for the first time. It’s very far away, but it’s a great opportunity to meet students on the other side of the globe to see how alike and different we are.”

The coastal city of Kuji had almost 35,000 people in 2020, about 10,000 more than Franklin.

“It’s beautiful in the fall, it looks like Brown County,” Moore said. “It’s heavily wooded with hills, almost mountains and it’s a seaside city with a fishing industry. They have a beautiful coastline and rugged terrain to their west, and it’s famous for amber mining. Very much like Midwesterners, they’re open and friendly. They don’t know a stranger. They’re very welcoming, very rural and make a great sister city.”

Students had a May 12 deadline to apply for the trip. School officials are interviewing applicants this week and next week, and will make a selection decision later this month, Moore said.

Franklin Schools Superintendent David Clendening is part of that selection process, and he said he’s looking for students who aren’t afraid of a challenge.

“I want to see students who are willing to try something brand new and out of their comfort zone,” Clendening said. “Kids applying for these things are usually in good academic standing and are good citizens. For me, I want someone who is willing to try and someone willing to talk in large groups and hold conversations in small groups. When we go to Kuji, they’ll talk about their school and community at home and talk about the experience.”

Local businesses are helping fund the trip, limiting the cost to less than $2,500 per student. As of Tuesday, those businesses had raised more than $20,000. Donor businesses include KYB, Mitsubishi and NSK, Japanese companies with locations in Franklin, Moore said.

The money can be used to not only give students a discount on the fall trip, but to partially fund future trips, he said.

Leaders from Franklin schools hope to have the trip every other year, so students who don’t make the cut during their eighth-grade year can reapply for trips during the sophomore or senior year of high school, Clendening said.

The visit to Japan will help Franklin students expand their horizons globally, he said.

“I hope they understand it’s a big world out there and there are a lot of different ways to navigate it and our way is not necessarily the only way or the best way,” Clendening said. “That being said, people are still people, they still get up and have their routines and go through their days. I hope students become interested in working for international companies like the Japanese companies in Franklin. I hope they have an interest in working and possibly living abroad in the future.”

If all goes according to plan, students from Kuji will arrive in Franklin in January, marking the first time in four years they’ve made the trip.

Franklin city officials will lead sightseeing tours of Franklin and are planning to upgrade Kuji Alley by the time students arrive, Franklin Mayor Steve Barnett said.

“It’ll be pretty exciting when the kids see we’ve upgraded that alley into something special for our Japanese sister city,” he said.

The alley upgrade comes from a collaboration between the city, Festival Country Indiana, Discover Downtown Franklin and the Franklin Public Art Advisory Commission. Plans include putting up an arch with Japanese lanterns hanging from the structure, and another mural on the wall with a new footbridge near the painted koi fish.

The footbridge will serve also serve as a photo op location, where locals and tourists alike can pose for a Japan-themed picture. The total cost for the alley is $71,231, with buy-in from the city, Festival Country, and the Branigin Foundation. Funding was as also requested from Johnson County Community Foundation. The city funding of $27,190 comes from the Franklin Board of Works and Public Safety budget and from Economic Development Fees — which is money paid to the Economic Development Commission by companies that have received tax abatements.

The partnership between Franklin and Kuji started in 1915, when Franklin College graduate Thomasine Allen went to Japan as a missionary and founded the Kuji Christian Center. Kuji became Franklin’s official sister city in 1961 with an international agreement.

Barnett has been heavily involved with the partnership since he became a city council member in 2008, welcoming Japanese students every January until 2020, the last year students visited. That year, they stopped by not only Franklin schools but also the Johnson County Courthouse, the Historic Artcraft Theatre, the Garment Factory and city hall.

The resumption of travel between the two cities will only strengthen the relationship, Barnett said.

“I’m just happy getting back to this stage. We put our lives on hold for three to four years and the education the kids will get from this is part of a great partnership,” Barnett said. “We’ve stayed in touch, sending letters during the holidays and wishing each other well. It was truly a relationship but a distanced relationship. We want to continue this for generations.”