Salle Hayden

Notes From Further West - A Japanese Memoir Salle Hayden

Notes from Further West is a memoir and retrospective of Salle's time in Japan in the early 1980s as she looked back at that time from 2014. This is a unique viewpoint from a professional English teacher with a great deal to say about the culture, the time in history, and the effect it all had on the lives of herself and her family. The book is built on the monthly newsletters called Notes From Further West that Salle sent to have her father distribute to the mailing list of people who wanted to know about her and her adventure. Salle and her son, Scott arrived in Japan in April of 1980, with no language and no knowledge of what they were getting into. This is a coming of age story for Scott and an education of an educator. Over the five and a half years that Salle spent in Okayama City, Sister City to her home of San Jose, California, you can follow along as you see what the poet saw, and feel what the poet felt. There is isolation and integration, immersion language study for both and even a new way of looking at the weather. When Salle returned to the United States in October 1985 she had developed a bilingual system of the language and a cultural understanding that she surfed as a great wave into a new life. Enjoy the experience alongside the author. See Japan in a whole new light.