WESTVILLE — At 6 foot tall, Thomas Prall of Westville stood out in Japan.

It wasn’t just his size that turned heads, but also his warm smile and a genuine desire to learn about another culture.

That meant eating fermented soybeans, learning the language, playing Santa Claus, puttering around in a small car and living in a cramped apartment.

Prall, 28, endured it all with a smile for three years because he was doing what he loved — learning about another culture while making a difference in the people’s lives.

“I always felt welcomed there. The Japanese are very hospitable,” he said. “But at the same time, I always felt I was a guest there and didn’t quite feel at home.”

Prall recently returned to the United States after having spent three years as an assistant language teacher of English in Japanese schools. He was part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, now in its 21st year, which promotes grass-roots international exchange between Japan and other nations.

In 2007, JET welcomed 5,119 participants from 41 countries. Most of them are young people just out of college or in their 20s.

A 1998 graduate of Schlarman High School, Prall received a degree in psychology in 2002 from the University of Notre Dame. Encouraged by his parents, Patricia and David Prall, he has traveled extensively.

In summer 2002, Prall taught English in China, and enjoyed the experience so much that he wanted to return to Asia.

He got the chance when he signed up with JET and was sent in July 2005 to Isahaya City, which is in Nagasaki prefecture. The town is a one-half hour ride by train from Nagasaki City.

He requested the Nagasaki area because there are a lot of Catholics, and he could attend Mass in English at a nearby church.

IN THE CLASSROOM

Prall traveled among four elementary schools (grades 1-6) and a couple of junior highs. Some of the schools are in the country.

The largest grade school had 800 students enrolled, with five classes of first-graders and an average of 35 students in each class.

The students were enthusiastic about learning English, he said.

In the evenings, he volunteered to teach English to adults once a week.

Prall took two semesters of Japanese before moving to the country, so he had a rudimentary understanding of the language, and he studied it every day.

“It’s so time-intensive,” he said. “It takes a huge amount of self-discipline every day.”

There are three forms of written communication, and he understood two of them. Even the Japanese youth take a long time to learn the written forms.

Prall said he could read 1,200 characters, and was able to get around town.

“I could convey my point,” he said. “I would ask where was a restaurant or a dentist.”

At the junior highs, he served as an assistant to the Japanese teacher of English and helped with the day-to-day lesson plans and activities.

At the elementary schools, he created lesson plans and came up activities and games to make the classes fun.

Outside of the language teachers, most of the other teachers didn’t speak English, he said.

“I used a lot of gestures and diagramming on the board to show what I wanted to do,” he said.

The Japanese government is making a push for more English in the elementary schools, he said, and eventually it will be required.

One of the highlights of his stay was the time he played Santa Claus for some preschoolers. The students wanted a foreigner to play Santa.

Christmas is very secularized and not a big deal, he said.

Still, he said, “It was fun. It was really cool.”

ZIPPING AROUND

Prall got around on buses, trains and on foot. But, his first year, he bought a Diahatsu Move, a four-door car which is smaller than the average car. It didn’t move very quickly, either.

“It was equivalent to a riding-lawn mower,” he said with a laugh. “All the (other) cars would be going by me on the highway.”

Gas was about $6 a gallon, and it took $35 to fill his car’s small tank, he said.

Because of his height and his non-Asian look, Prall got attention wherever he went.

“You have a celebrity status when you’re there. People stare at you. A couple of times, kids would cry,” he said with a smile, explaining that some children in the rural areas had never seen a foreigner.

Prall also had difficulty finding clothing that fit, and his mother would send him clothes. He had to buy basketball shoes in South Korea to fit his size 12 feet.

He ate all of the local dishes, including tons of sushi, raw whale meat and fermented soybeans on rice, which he described as pungent and slimy. He also made sure he popped into Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s occasionally, he said, “to keep in touch with my American roots.”

Prall had the chance to travel when school was on break, and went to Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Okinawa, Vietnam, South Korea and Tokyo.

What did he like best about his trip?

“The opportunity to discover little things about the Japanese culture that you can’t find in books. The opportunity to see first-hand what a culture is like day to day,” he said.

SEE THE WORLD

That type of experience is invaluable, said Lily Siu, a former teacher at Danville Area Community College. She’s now a dean at Richland Community College in Decatur, and maintains a home in Danville.

Prall took a Japanese culture class from Siu when she was teaching at DACC.

She encourages young people to go out and learn about other cultures and countries.

“We can’t sit here waiting for people to come to us,” she said. “In the heartland, unlike the coastal states, we’re not exposed to as many diverse populations. It’s good for us to go to Chicago and meet different people.”

Siu is Chinese, but she speaks some Japanese and knows the culture. When she visited Japan 25 years ago, people were excited about foreigners, she said.

“People come up and swarm around you,” she said. However, there are more foreigners in Japan now, at least in the bigger cities, and it’s not such a novelty in some places.

Siu also plans a trip this fall to see the brilliant colors of the gingko and maple trees, which line the sides of the temples. There’s a spotlight on the trees, and they’re also reflected in the ponds.

“It’s stunning. It’s amazing,” she said.

Japan has wonderful gardens, she said, adding, “The more you work with it, the more natural it looks.”

The world is changing, Siu said, and — from both a personal and business standpoint — it’s good for people to get out and learn about others.

MOVING ON

Prall could have stayed another two years, but, he said, “I felt it was just time to come home.”

Prall was so busy during his last days in Japan that he didn’t have time to feel sad about leaving. He had going-away dinners to attend. And his students made him colorful cards in English and Japanese, thanking him for his friendship.

“I definitely will miss Japan,” he said, adding he’d like to return every year if he could afford it.

After a visit to the Danville area to visit his parents and his brother, John, who lives in Weldon, Prall moved to Denver, Colo., where he hopes to find a job in social work. He used to work at CRIS Senior Services before moving to Japan.

A year from now, he hopes to enroll in graduate school.

FYI

More information about the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme can be found on its Web site http://www.jetprogramme.org