It took an 11-hour plane ride, extensive English lessons and a series of rigorous interviews for 15 Japanese exchange students to finally set foot on The Farm. But on Feb. 5, the smiling batch of exchange students were greeted by their Stanford hosts for a month-long campus stay.

45 Stanford students in the Stanford Japanese Exchange Club (SJEC), a 59 year-old program designed to encourage cross-cultural friendship, welcomed their Japanese guests from Doshisha University, Kyoto University and the Keio University in Tokyo. Josh Koplin ’10, the leader of the six decades old, student-run program, says the goal of the exchange is to “promote cultural understanding between the U.S. and Japan.”

Each of the 15 Japanese students stays with three separate hosts for a 10-day interval. Living in the dorms, attending classes and hanging out with their hosts, the Japanese students get a real taste of Stanford life.

“We start planning for the students’ arrival in the fall,” said sophomore Hwee Lee, one of the 12 core officers handling the logistics of the program. “The schedule is pretty fixed because the program’s been going on for so long.”

The program’s history and prestige, both at Stanford and Japan, was a major draw for many participants.

“I’ve wanted to study in the U.S. for a long time,” said Rena Isomura, a freshman from Keio University. “I planned on taking a year abroad here, but when I saw the poster on a campus billboard, I knew I had to apply to this program.”

She recalled the rigorous application process for the SJEC program.

“There were many essays and interviews,” she explained. “It started with 20 initial applicants and at the end, there were only six or seven of us.”

Cheryl Miyake ’13, Isomura’s first host, became interested in SJEC because “at Stanford it seems like there are many international students from China, but no Japanese students.” As a Japanese-American student herself, she jumped at the chance to interact with contemporaries from Japan and share Stanford culture with them. Miyake and Xian Shan ’13, other host students, also have big plans for their guests.

“We should totally go fountain hopping!” Miyake said excitedly, deaf to Shan’s protests about the less-than-ideal weather.

But fountain hopping wasn’t the only new thing that Japanese exchange students were exposed to–for many, there was a degree of culture shock in everyday and classroom interactions on campus.

“In Japanese classes the students are too shy to put their hand up,” Isomura said. “There are 300 people in the lecture hall and one professor talking; he doesn’t even notice we are existing.”

Isomura attended a Stanford humanities lecture the day she arrived, and the differences in class dynamics were immense.

“There were 20 people, and everyone put their hand up, argued, asked questions to each other,” she recalled. “The students were doing the work, not the professor. The professor called the students by name, too.”

Charlie Dunn ’11, who went on the Bing Overseas program in Kyoto, said he understands the cultural gap between Japanese and American norms.

“In Japan, everyone’s looking to serve you–in a restaurant or even just ordinary people,” Dunn said. “In America, the feeling is kind of, ‘Just leave me alone.’ We tend to value our freedom more, have a more individualist attitude, doing what you want to do, not what’s best for everyone.”

He also found the workplace hierarchy in Japan gratingly different from the U.S., telling the story of how he asked his mentor from his summer internship for a letter of recommendation.

“He explained to me how that was going to be difficult,” he said. “It turns out that what makes a good letter of recommendation in Japan is how important the person is who wrote it; he thought he was going to have to go to the vice president. It’s very hierarchical–you don’t leave the office until the person above you has left.”

Socially, many of the exchange students found Stanford a drastic departure from the social scene in Japan. Ruryko Mitsuishi, a freshman from Doshisa University, went to Theta Delta’s Avatar-themed party with her Stanford host and found the experience extremely different than home life.

“There are no parties like that in Japan,” she said. “We usually do karaoke on the weekend.”

But despite the cultural differences, the Japanese students were committed to making the most of their SJEC stay.

“In Japan, we just learn English,” said Isomura. “I want to learn something through English.”