East Meets West began in 2003 when Valerie de Furrentes, resident in the village of Bridge, was invited by William Rose to meet two Tenryu schoolchildren and Trevor Anderson, a representative of the Tenryu Board of Education. Valerie, Director of East Meets West, has a special interest in the Far East and taught Comparative Cultural Studies for five years at the Japanese Shumei University on the campus at The University of Kent.