HEREABOUTS beth anspach
When 17-year-old Yuan Zhou left Thailand in August of last year headed for the United States, it was the first time she had ever left her native land. She came with 168 other exchange students to a camp in Seattle before eventually ending up with her host family, the McCutcheons of Huber Heights.
“Being at the camp helped a lot.” Yuan said. “Because only one other student from Thailand ended up at Wayne with me and everyone else was all over the country. The camp was three weeks long, and we were together every day like family.”
And though Yuan already knew how to speak English, so the language barrier wasn’t really a concern, there were other huge differences she had to contend with right away.
“It is totally different here in the U.S.,” Yuan said. “Thailand is hot all year long and I didn’t have the right clothes.” So Misty McCutcheon, or “Mom” to Yuan and her other four children, took her out shopping, because with the changing seasons came the cool weather in Ohio.
“As soon as she got here, we had two family trips to take right away,” said McCutcheon. “We went to South Carolina and West Virginia, and she got to make apple butter and experience her first trick or treat.”
Other firsts for Yuan included her first snowfall.
As an only child, Yuan had to adjust to living in the bustling McCutcheon household. “In Thailand I live in a small condo,” Yuan said. “Here I go up and down stairs, and there are a lot of bedrooms.”
McCutcheon said she always considered participating in an exchange program, though she had never done so. “I’ve always said that sometime when I have an empty room I’m going to see what it’s like,” McCutcheon said.
Coincidentally, McCutcheon’s son Patrick, 21, recently joined the Army and left for basic training about the same time that Yuan needed a place to stay.
“My good friend Joni Edmondson, who places exchanges students, had a home fall through at the last minute and asked me if I could take Yuan,” McCutcheon said. “So it turned out that it was the right time.”
Yuan spent entire junior year at Wayne High School in Huber Heights, and though she has communicated daily with her family back home in Thailand via Skype, she said she was excited to return home last week.
“I want to come back here and go to Wright State for college,” she said. “But I miss everything about home.”
McCutcheon said the experience was valuable, but that she won’t do it again because she wants to leave the bedroom open for Yuan. “We hope she will come back for college next year.”
Contact this writer at (937) 475-8212 or banspach@ymail.com.
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