inside WSU

As a young girl growing up in the small town of Aurora, Mo., Janice Holtsclaw didn’t know much about life elsewhere in the world.

So as part of an English class writing assignment in junior high school in 1959, she wrote to fellow schoolchildren in Osaka, Japan. As the pen-pal relationships with several Japanese schoolchildren flourished, "I told everybody in my hometown that I’m going to Japan someday," she recalls.

She finally took that trip – 42 years later, because of lasting friendships she formed with some international students at WSU.

Holtsclaw, a locksmith at WSU for the past two decades, spent nearly three weeks in May visiting friends in Malaysia and Japan.

She first met Christina and her husband Chee Weng Chew from Malaysia in 1993 through a now-defunct host family program run by her church, Immanuel Baptist Church. Chee Weng was studying computer science at WSU.

As the holidays neared in 1996, a few months after the Malaysian couple had left, Holtsclaw and her husband Richard, a plumber at WSU, decided they wanted to befriend another international student. The couple met Yuko Tanaka from Japan through WSU’s Friendship Family Program.

When Tanaka graduated from WSU in 1998 and went on to graduate school in Iowa, Holtsclaw continued that friendship, just as she did with her Malaysian friends, through cards, letters, and as of a year ago, e-mail.

WSU program pairs locals, international students

WSU’s Friendship Family Program is currently looking for individuals or families interested in befriending international students.

As Janice Holtsclaw, a locksmith at WSU, has discovered, these friendships are not only a way to share Wichita and our American culture, but an opportunity to find out about another culture and to form a friendship that can continue after the student returns to their country.

Nearly 1,500 international students are enrolled this semester at WSU. About 400 of the students are new to WSU.

For many students, their stay in Wichita is the first time they’ve been away from their countries and families.

About 40 students have been matched with families, while another 30 students who’ve signed up for the program are waiting for a match, according to Sherry Lamm, international student adviser.

Once matched, participants are asked to spend time with the student at least once a month. "As the friendship develops, it can be more frequent," Lamm says.

For more information, contact Lamm at 978-5372 from 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. or at sherry.lamm @wichita.edu.

– Amy Geiszler-Jones

If one doubts the depth of her friendships, one need only hear her describe Christina and Yuko as her "Malaysian and Japanese daughters," respectively. She proudly displays their photos in her living room.

"It’s proven to be a really interesting thing for me," says Holtsclaw of her friendships. "I’m the type of person who enjoys sharing the city of Wichita with other people."

And the Holtsclaws shared more than just the local sights, taking their international friends to places such as Branson, Mo., Eureka Springs, Ark., Kansas City, Mo., the Cathedral on the Plains in Victoria, Kan., and Topeka to see the "Treasures of the Czars" exhibition.

When Holtsclaw visited her friends – health reasons prevented Richard from making the trip – they reciprocated, taking her to various places as they hosted her in their homes.

The fact that Holtsclaw stayed in Tanaka’s family home shows how highly the family thinks of that friendship, says Deema deSilva, director of WSU’s Student Support Services and an expert on cross-cultural communication. "To be invited to a Japanese home is unusual and displays the bond that was created by Janice." Japanese families tend to be modest and humble about their homes, deSilva says.

Among her Malaysian trip highlights, Holtsclaw visited the summer palace of the king of Siam, built for one of Holtsclaw’s favorite movies, "Anna and the King." She visited another attraction, Kellie’s Castle, which had also been used in the movie, and spent time on Langkawi and Penang Islands.

In Japan, she rode the crowded bullet trains to visit temples and other sights. She also participated in traditional tea ceremonies and saw a Bunraku puppet performance that lasted nearly four hours. Japanese puppet theaters are not child’s fare; very serious dramas are presented with almost life-sized puppets operated by puppet masters who have studied their craft for years.

For Holtsclaw, developing friendships with students from faraway lands has been an enriching experience.

"It’s one of the most interesting things I have ever done," she says, "to actually personally know someone who has lived in a country 8-10,000 miles away, on the other side of the world, and to get to understand things about their family life, their schooling, their culture, their interests and their ambitions. And at the same time I get to share my background, experiences, the city of Wichita and the university with them."

She plans to continue sharing experiences by participating again in the future in WSU’s Friendship Family Program. Also, while she was in Japan, a school group visiting a temple asked Holtsclaw for her address and she’s since developed another pen-pal relationship with another junior high class in Japan, just as she did 42 years ago.