Bangor - An 18 member delegation from a school in China is spending the next two weeks in the United States.

The first week for the 15 students and 3 teachers is spent in Bangor.

Their visit is part of an educational trend being seen around the state and the country.

"What's happened in just the last 5 to 10 years is that the flow of International students has opened up to include the largest country in the world and so as we say we've seen waves before from South Korea and Japan," said Mel Mackay, the Headmaster of John Bapst High School. "But when there's a wave from China it's not like any wave anyone has experienced previously."

The kids from this delegation will visit 5 middle and high schools in Maine, they will also travel to Boston, New York City, and Washington DC before heading back to China.

It's all in an effort to learn as much as they can.

"I wanted to come and our school hosted this activity, that we travel and study in Bangor, Maine," said one of the students from the Huayi School, Zhao Xixian.

"They want to come over here to like look at what's the number one country looks like you know, what I can learn and what's different, the schools, the family, with China's," said Jing Zhang, director of the Chinese Language and Cultural Center of Maine and the President of the Bangor Chinese School.

If these kids decide to go to school in the United States, and live with host families here, the goal is for them to get an education and maybe accomplish something broader in the long term.

"These young children come over here they talk together, after 20 years they are going to be best friend of the world," said Jing Zhang, "Chinese kids, and American kids, they communicate, I hope they keep communicating and then when they are grown up the world will belong to them."

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