Flying the Flag for HOST UK

Susanna and James joined HOST UK in 2013 and have enjoyed sharing their home at Christmas time with a wide variety of international university students. During that time Susanna has become particularly interested in the language and culture of South Korea. They tell us how hosting has opened their eyes to a whole new culture.

Do you remember anything about your first Christmas visitor?

James: Well, that really was memorable! We hosted a Chinese girl from Wuhan for Christmas 2013 and about two or three weeks later she found herself homeless. She had finished her course at Canterbury University but when she tried to fly home, Air France was on strike and she was stuck. She phoned us up and said, “I haven’t got anywhere to go. Can I come back to you?”. I drove to her university to help her pack her stuff into the car. In the end, she was here for six days before a flight was available.

And during the 12 years you’ve been hosting with us, have you had an international student every Christmas?

James: We missed 2016, I think, and then of course there was COVID. Although we’ve hosted at other times of the year, Christmas is more special. You have to make more of an effort at Christmas, you can’t sort of just slob around! We give them the full works, the Christmas they’ve seen in the movies – the decorated tree, the flaming pudding, the stockings.

Susanna: I make the student their own stocking with hand embroidery. I always attend our local Catholic church at Christmas, and I invite the student to come with me. The last guest came from India, and she was a Hindu, but it was an interesting cultural experience for her to see inside a church and discover how Christians celebrate the season. I think it’s hard when you’re in a foreign country to access those things because they’re very personal to people.

I once took a student to a wedding! Somebody I knew was getting married and it was a public mass, so we went and sat at the back so she could see an English wedding. We stayed all the way to the end. She loved to see the confetti being thrown.

I also took Kritvi, who was here just a couple of weeks ago, to see the Halloween parade in Whitstable. It’s organised by the shops in the high street and almost every child was dressed up with their parents, coming down the road in the dark. So, we walked through all these people, and the school where I work was still open. I was able to show Kritvi inside my classroom. As a visitor, you wouldn’t normally get the opportunity to do that.

Can you tell me about the American students Archer and Megan in 2023, who attended a remembrance ceremony with you?

James: In Whitstable there’s a big parade and the Scouts, the Brownies, Sea Cadets and the RNLI all go to the War Memorial. It is packed, absolutely packed and is a real moment of quiet remembrance. But it was not how the Americans had experienced it at all. They were genuinely surprised that it was so solemn and not like the military celebration they have at home.

Have your students kept in touch with you over the years?

James: Yes, the second Christmas we had, Midori, from Japan. She’s been back several times and she writes to us. She works in the video games industry and does translation and English subtitles for a Japanese publisher. Also, Jolene from Malaysia visited a second time with a friend and she was in the UK for five years doing dentistry.

We keep a little book of our visitors, and we are on 48 since 2013. We’ll be hosting two more very shortly, Alina from America in November, and then Phuwasa from Thailand for Christmas, so we’ll be up to 50 by then. I also buy the national flag of each of our visitors and display them around a mirror in our hallway.

Has hosting international students given you the opportunity to learn about other cultures?

Susanna: In 2018 we hosted our first student from South Korea, and we’ve had another student who was born in South Korea, but her father was from China and she’d moved to America to study abroad from the age of 10. As a consequence, she had a very interesting view of China and South Korea from the American perspective. During lockdown, we got into watching Netflix and we watched a lot of South Korean films and series. It sent us down a South Korean rabbit hole and we haven’t come out of it yet! In fact, I’ve been learning Korean for four and a half years and we had a fantastic trip to Seoul in 2024.

What do you think you’ve learnt over those 12 years and what do you take away from the experiences each time?

James: I think it’s learning about the other countries. We’re often shocked and surprised at things we hear about other countries in our media. The picture they paint about other countries is not what we hear from the students we host.

Susanna: We had a fascinating insight into marriage arrangements in India with our guest from Imperial College this year. While he was with us, he fielded several phone calls from his mother who had compiled a list of 26 girls she thought were suitable partners.

James: And even while he was here, he had to take some calls with girls, organised by his mother. Eventually he made his choice and three weeks later the girl proposed to him, and they will be married in 2026! The best bit was that the girl he had chosen was one that he had called from our house in May and in November he brought her here to meet us. We felt as if we had gained a special place in his life, and he wanted us to meet his future partner. Another honourable mention should go to the Chinese and the Taiwanese girls we hosted at the same time. They had a lot to discuss, and the Chinese girl told us that she had gained a completely new insight into the world outside China. We also hosted a Chinese young man who couldn’t understand why there were so many Ukrainian flags in our town. We had a lot of interesting conversations around the Ukrainian war, how we care for the environment in the UK and, most importantly, how British people always try to help strangers in distress.

The world has come to our doorstep

Could you tell us a little about the impact hosting has had on you and your family?

James: When we first started hosting students our own children were 2, 6 and 10 so they have grown up feeling it’s fine to talk to people from other countries. They’ve always had a very open mind to other cultures, which has been fabulous, and it’s opened our eyes up to the world. We would never have travelled to Asia without this experience. We have already visited South Korea, and we will be going to the Philippines next year. So, it’s really broadened our perspective.

Susanna: It’s enriched our lives so much. It’s made life so much more interesting. I feel that the world has come to our doorstep. If people talk to each other in this world, we will not have wars and the more you can learn about each other, the better. We’re generally a very tolerant country and we need to accept people for the strengths and skills they bring into our society. The other thing I often say when I’m talking to students here is, “Talking is better than fighting”. That’s the bottom line.

*Can you name the country for each flag? Here are the answers. How many did you manage to guess?