Six Japanese visitors with the Japan-America Grassroots Summit, and their guides, stopped off at Marie’s Candies in West Liberty on Friday, Sept. 22. The cultural experience relies on a person-to-person exchange. With that in mind, a group of Americans will head over to Wakayama, Japan, in 2024. (EXAMINER PHOTO | SHARYN KOPF)
For the first time in its over 30 years, the Japan-America Grassroots Summit came to Ohio … and Bellefontaine was one of eight communities chosen for “local sessions.”
As a result, six of the 63 Japanese tourists spent four days in Logan County, seeing the sights, eating the food, even going to a Bellefontaine Chieftains football game.
“We wanted to give them a true experience of life in America,” Ben Vollrath, Logan County Chamber of Commerce president, said. “The goal was to show our guests some of the popular and interesting things in our community.”
To make sure our visitors felt welcome, city employees greeted them with Japanese flags when they got off the bus in Bellefontaine Thursday, Sept. 21. Their time here included a presentation at townhall, a tour and lunch at Ohio Hi-Point, shopping downtown Bellefontaine, pizza at 600 and exploring the Ohio taverns.
They also tried some frozen custard at Whit’s, but since dessert isn’t common in Japan, according to Vollrath, that was a little sweet for them. Still, they enjoyed many of their experiences, including getting “arrested” by the police.
Our six visitors stayed with five area families. On Thursday and Friday they toured Logan County, then spent Saturday with their hosts. Besides Bellefontaine and Columbus, Japanese participants went to Delaware, Dublin, Findlay, Marysville, Sidney or Troy.
The annual summit was created to celebrate the friendship between Nakahama Manjiro and Captain William Whitfield. The two met off the coast of Japan in 1841 when a marooned 14-year-old Manjiro was rescued by Whitfield. Shortly after, Whitfield brought the young man to his home in America. Manjiro later played a key role in strengthening relations between the two countries.
In honor of that friendship, the summit started in 1991. The visits have gone back and forth every year, with Americans going to Japan on odd years and Japanese participants coming here on the even ones, until it moved to online events as a result of the pandemic.
For the last physical exchange, in 2019, 1,200 U.S. residents went to Hyogo, Japan. In 2018, 1,300 Japanese toured Washington state. Other U.S. locations they’ve visited include Virginia, Colorado, Georgia and New England.