Hurst Coffman
(1969-70)
I arrived in July 1969, just two days before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and stayed until the following July 1970. Teaching at LIOJ was truly one of the pivotal experiences that changed my life forever. I went to Japan fresh out of college, having never really lived outside Ottawa, Kansas for any period of time. Suddenly, Joy Noren and I landed in a foreign country with a strange language and millions and millions of short people with black hair all bowing to each other. Joy had lived in Hong Kong as a child so she was pretty blase about the whole thing. I was enthralled.
To this day, I have a great fondness for the Japanese people and their marvelous culture. We were exposed firsthand to Japan through our students. I will always remember the fun I had working with the students. I taught everyone from children, to college students and businessmen at LIOJ, as well as students at the textile factory, the night school in Atami, and my dear old private student, Mr. Natsui, the pharmacist. Once a week I went to Mr. Natsui's home in Odawara for private instruction, which never seemed to move forward when it came to English proficiency, but after our lesson he would take me to all the nightclubs in Odawara for some "refreshments" with his buddies.
I will always remember Mr. and Mrs. Harker, Tone Kimura, Truan Tuan, another young Japanese secretary whose name I cannot remember but who was so dear, and of course Mr. and Mrs. Mitsui from Tokyo. These people influenced my life through their gracious tolerance of a bunch of crazy American college students who descended on LIOJ during the height of the "love and peace" generation and the Vietnam War. It was a special time for all of us. Joy was my friend from college so we were best friends throughout the year. I will always fondly remember all the teachers: my roommate, Mark Dillon; his classmates from Occidental College, Lee Cheney, Nora Larimer and Carol Josselyn; Vicki Wiersma from Carleton College; Ray Martin from Boston; Carol Bullen, Don Mattox, and Bill Crutchfield from the MRA days; and Judy Craig from Cleveland. We had a wonderful time together and got along so well.
I remember enough Japanese to know the language immediately when I hear it and to fumble through some little phrases to startle any Japanese tourist anywhere in the world when they meet this "henna gaijin." I can still tell you the difference between ippon, ichimai, hitori, and hitatsu. I use chopsticks in our Topeka Chinese restaurants like a pro. I long for a big tray of fresh sushi. Once in a while, I throw on my old yukata after a shower. And sometimes when I'm daydreaming, I can see in my mind's eye the faint whiff of smoke coming from the volcano at Oshima Island, just the way it looked from my window at LIOJ.
I'm so glad the school is alive and going strong. It has not only served as a tremendous resource for language study on the part of countless thousands of Japanese through the years, but has also planted the seeds of goodwill and understanding between America and Japan on the part of the many, many American young people who have had the opportunity, as we did, to get to know firsthand the Japanese people and their culture.
May 2003
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