Happy New Year from around the world!

One of the joys in doing cultural exchange is SHARE!-ing with one another the customs in how we celebrate the holidays. See how some of our students celebrate the new year!

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Son Thai (Vietnam)

We celebrate New Year in 8 days. Three days before New Year Day, we prepare and decorate the house for New Year. Then in New Year Eve, our family have dinner together and wait until midnight to watch fireworks. In New Year Day, people always go to their relatives and their friends to give them wishes. Children and elder people receive “lucky money” or sometimes is gift. People go to the market in these day but most of them go before New Year Day.


We do this in next 5 days. For me, New Year is one of the funniest and happiest holidays. We have more activities but I can’t remember all of them to tell you . I will tell you more about it when I remember somethings else. Here are some pictures about our New Year.

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Theo (Belgium)

When it's about the New Year and the New Year's Eve in Belgium everybody do it a bit different. But there is one main thing about New Year that's the same for most of the people: we get together!! No matter it's with your family or with your friends we celebrate New Year's Eve with people and we wait till midnight to wish everybody a happy New Year. What I usually do is sending a message to the people(friends and family) that are not with me at this moment to wish them a happy New Year. When we get together for the Eve and we eat a big meal. Then on January first a lot of people eat sauerkraut and the custom is to put a piece of money under the plate to bring luck on the coming year. On my side I usually celebrate the New Year's Eve with my friends and the New Year's day with my family eating sauerkraut and I really like these days.

State Slang

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You might be familiar with American slang like “lit” (something really excites you) or “goat” (an acronym for “greatest of all time”) but even certain states or regions have their own peculiar slang words. Here are a few—

Pennsylvania: Yinz—is a word that is similar to how the South uses “y’all”.

Massachusetts: Rotary—refers to a traffic circle. The use of this word might have originate from the rotary dial on older telephones.

Iowa: Garf—describes visible imperfections like dings on your car, chipped mug, ridges in polished finger nails.

Florida: Snowbirds—people who travel south to Florida to escape the cold weather in the north.

Wisconsin: Bubbler—refers to a water fountain the Wisconsinites might visit to cool off.

Can you discover words that have special meanings in your state?

I Know A Story... Lyn Zuberer from Texas

Lyn Zuberer's experience hosting exchange students started many years ago while she was still a youngster. Her family hosted a young man from Gabon, Africa, who had been studying in France. Her interest was sparked, "he was so interesting and had so much to share. My brother still stays in contact with him."

She was hooked, so when she had her own family and her children were in elementary school they hosted their first student and fell in love. Since then they have hosted many students and the experience has been wonderful.

Of course these days, the days of Covid, who in the world would want to host an exchange student? Well, according to Lyn, " we are trying to keep our life as normal as possible, having a student every year is our normal, and we felt if there was a student who was willing to come on an exchange during Covid, we would love to help make their dream come true and their year a little happier as well. We realize that Covid is very serious, but with proper precautions and following CDC guidelines it should be fine.”

As a single mom Lyn loves having more kids in her house. "As a host parent you provide a bed, bathroom, meals and all the love and support you can give. I cannot imagine not having a student here with us."

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We were wondering, how does one go about choosing their exchange student?

According to Lyn, "first off, I only host girls. I try to look for family interests - pets, shopping, art and activities. I read their questions and letters a few times to get a feel for their life. I have to admit, I avoid food restrictive students because extra cooking is never fun."

We asked Lyn about the typical language barrier issue. She responded, " isn't that the joy of hosting? It's a puzzle or a game, it's a learning process and a chance to learn a new language. We use dictionaries, translators and closed captioning on the TV for a bit, but you manage. And we laugh a lot when you still cannot understand each other. As I tell the student, your English is WAY better than my (French, German, Spanish, Hungarian…).”

"When the student arrives, we acclimate them, by, as we call it, "baptism by fire".

We try to plan as much as possible, so the student does not get homesick and they can adjust to our crazy life. This past year we went to a museum for the day, out to eat, went to the beach, a sweet sixteenth birthday party and met the neighbors. I give them the house rules and start them on their chores immediately (I’ll do anything NOT to have to empty the dishwasher)!" 

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We asked Lyn how school was for her students. "The student will go to the school zoned in your area, in my case a huge, four-story, 4,700 student high school, and it can be very overwhelming. And, of course this year being so different - to say the least, both my daughter and my student came home in tears...which of course made me cry too. After we sat and talked, rearranged some schedules, and adjusted to school life with masks, the year got better. Now, my student is the manager of the volleyball team, on the soccer team, has lots of friends and is involved in clubs and is loving school. Everything takes time to adjust."

According to Lyn, "the best thing about hosting is seeing your world through the eyes of your student. Seeing Texas or Florida, as if I am seeing it for the first time. The wonder in their faces as you take them places you overlook daily. Their happiness of seeing the beach, the excitement of seeing people riding horses in a parade, the size of the high schools, the Christmastime festivities and trying American food. It all becomes a wonder.”

What's the worst part of hosting? Lyn does not mince words. "the worst part of hosting is always, SAYING GOODBYE."