Asia Meets Americana

Twenty-one Japanese college students are headed for home after living three weeks with families in the San Fernando Valley.

The students came to America as part of a study-tour program designed to improve their English and introduce them to some American pastimes, such as hitting Vegas for the weekend and horseback riding in suburbia.

During their stay, the students went to Disneyland, Universal Studios, Magic Mountain and UCLA. They saw a game show at NBC, had lunch with corporate officers in the board room of Mitsui Manufacturers Bank and spent an afternoon in a shopping mall.

In the mornings they studied English at Reseda First United Methodist Church. During free time, they traveled or just did the things their host families liked to do.

For Hitoshi Yoshimura, a 21-year-old student of international relations from City University of Yokohama, and Yoshinobu Mimura, a 22-year-old student of economics at Keio University, that meant riding horseback in the Santa Susana Mountains.

The two young men, who did not know each other before the trip, stayed with Chris and Clyde Huffman of Canoga Park. Chris is an engineer and Clyde is manager of a data processing department at Litton in Van Nuys.

Seven years ago, the Huffmans received a solicitation through their church from a company called InterStudy that was arranging American tours for foreign students. The students pay their own travel expenses, and costs are kept down by finding host families to provide room and board.

Every year since then the Huffmans have had one or two Japanese students.

“We do it because we enjoy it,” Chris Huffman said. “The kids are just downright fun.”

Like Yoshinobu and Hitoshi, the students usually arrive with no horseback-riding experience but return home with the skills, both verbal and physical, to brag, as Hitoshi did last week, that they ride “like a cowboy.”

For the Huffmans, the exchange program has created lifelong relationships.

“Our No. 1 Japanese son is getting married in April and is coming over for his honeymoon. We expect someday to be Japanese-American grandparents.”