By Erik Campuzano

Dalyn Van Laanen has “probably old enough to be your dad” jokingly written on his Instagram bio. At 27 years old, Dayln is the oldest person in his Japanese 303 class, but he still achieves success at the University of Oregon. Dalyn is a Japanese major and started learning Japanese seven years ago when he started working in Osaka, Japan.

Dayln moved from Sacramento, California, to Salem, Oregon, during middle school. He eventually graduated from Oregon State University in 2016 equipped with a bachelor’s in marketing and landed a job at Montbell.

Montbell is a Japanese company with U.S headquarters originally located in Portland, and it needed someone to go to Japan from the states. The company chose Dayln. So, he would visit Montbell’s headquarters located in Osaka for months at a time.

Dayln loved Osaka because he could explore a culture other than America’s. However, work weeks could sometimes consist of up to 60 hours, which led to him feeling burnt out of the job. Dayln left Osaka for a marketing job in America, but he felt like something was missing.

“I was happy with having a job and happy being content with the money I was making, but I wasn’t excited about working,” said Dalyn.

He wanted to bring Japanese back into his life because he missed Japan. He searched for a way to learn Japanese in America and found University of Oregon’s unique four-year Japanese program. When he found it, he decided to not renew his job contract and came to study Japanese at the University of Oregon.

Dayln placed into fourth-year Japanese when he arrived at the University of Oregon. However, he decided to take third-year Japanese because he wanted to focus on certain areas. Dayln is now two terms into the third-year Japanese program and sees improvements. Dayln believes that University of Oregon hiring people with a strong background and expertise in Japanese plays a big role in his learning.

The East Asian Language and Literature (EALL) department at UO has many native speakers of Japanese, many of whom are from Japan and have specific degrees in education and teaching Japanese. This was important to Dayln because it showed that UO has the faculty and resources he needs to be successful.

“I thought it was pretty impressive that we actually had the resources here at UO. … I know Ikei sensei graduated in education in Kyoto,” said Dayln. “So, I mean that kind of stuff seemed pretty important to me.”

Outside of class, Dayln takes advantage of opportunities available at the University of Oregon. Dayln works at University of Oregon’s Academic English for International Students (AEIS) program. The AEIS program helps international students from 102 countries develop their English while they take courses at the University of Oregon.

Students from Japan are one of the biggest international student populations at the University of Oregon. By working at AEIS, Dayln has connected with the Japanese population at the University of Oregon.

But Dayln utilizes more than just the AEIS center on campus. Places on campus like the Mills International Center and student groups like the Japanese Student Organization let students further interact in cultural and language exchanges.

Resources like this exist not only for students studying Japanese, but for any student looking to engage with another culture. By utilizing University of Oregon’s resources, Dayln is getting closer
to his personal goal: to achieve something he could feel proud about.

“That’s the whole point. I came back here just to be able to feel like hey, I did it,” said Dayln. “My four years or so that I’ve been back and forth to Japan in my life finally actually amount to
something. I have something to show for it.”

Dayln believes that Japan is trying to become a more international country and wants to capitalize on that. After he finishes his Japanese studies, he wants to work in a company somewhere in the United States where he can apply his unique skillset of Japanese and marketing skills.

Dayln is almost done with Japanese 303 and plans to take fourth year Japanese next year. Although he may be older than most of his classmates, that has not stopped him from being a successful
duck at the University of Oregon.

Dylan Van Laanen

Erik Campuzano