Piper Parker, front, a sixth-grader at Ryukyu Middle School, plans a shot for a Christmas video during a cultural exchange at American Village in Chatan town, Okinawa, Dec. 13, 2025. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
CHATAN TOWN, Okinawa — American and Japanese middle school students recently swapped holiday traditions and sharpened their storytelling skills by producing short Christmas-themed videos in one of Okinawa’s busiest tourist districts.
About 50 students teamed up Saturday at American Village’s Mihama Media Center for the voluntary cultural exchange hosted by Department of Defense Education Activity and the Chatan Tourism Design Lab Incorporated Association.
Working in mixed groups, students storyboarded, filmed and edited one-minute videos highlighting Christmas decorations and seasonal scenes across the popular shopping and dining area.
Kadena Middle School students Logan Pontious, left, and Ahrie Valencuela edit video on a tablet during a cultural exchange at Mihama Media Center in Chatan town, Okinawa, Dec. 13, 2025. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
Twenty-four DODEA students from Kadena, Lester and Ryukyu middle schools partnered with Japanese junior high school students in 10 groups. They will reconvene on Jan. 31 at Chatan Vessel Hotel to screen their completed projects.
“Our partnership is big with Chatan and the business owners there, so it’s a great way to promote what they do as well,” DODEA Pacific South superintendent Melissa Hayes said at the event. “But more so for our kids to come together and share their vision – to share and create and to come up with basically what brings you joy at Christmas and why we’re here together.”
Inside the media center, students crowded around laptops and huddled over smartphones, editing footage of Santa figures, reindeer and nutcracker statues filmed earlier in the day. One group of two American and two Japanese students fine-tuned clips while discussing movies.
American and Japanese students work on their videos during a cultural exchange at Mihama Media Center in Chatan town, Okinawa, Dec. 13, 2025. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
Outside, another group filmed a wide shot of a towering Christmas display at the entrance of the American Depot store before heading back indoors to edit.
“The best thing was actually doing this experience with everybody else and having the opportunity to do this,” said Kadena sixth-grader Logan Pontious.
Ryukyu sixth-grader Piper Parker said she signed up because she likes “meeting new people, like Japanese people, and I love the culture here.”
Parker said her group planned to incorporate images of KFC, a popular Christmas Day meal for Japanese families, in their video.
A group of American and Japanese students films the American Depot storefront for a Christmas video, part of a cultural exchange at American Village, Chatan town, Okinawa, Dec. 13, 2025. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
Her groupmate, Saki Uenohara, a first-year student at Kuwae Junior High School who speaks English, said she hopes similar exchanges continue.
“I wish that (there were) more places that American and Japanese people and a lot of country’s people could enjoy,” she said.
The event marked the second holiday-themed exchange between DODEA and Chatan. Last year, students painted Christmas ornaments and decorated trees. The partnership began in May 2023 with a scavenger hunt in American Village, Hayes said, and has focused exclusively on middle-schoolers.
“It’s a changing time for kiddos at the middle school level,” she said. “I think it really helps them understand and find themselves in a sense of being … social enough to say, ‘Hey, I’ve got something to bring to this situation and other people are just like me.’”
