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And he joined a bonsai club that met every Saturday.

“For two years, we’d drink green tea, then wrap and cut bonsai trees every Saturday,” Kodiak says. “I didn’t know any Japanese and most of them didn’t know any English. So I learned Japanese through the art of bonsai.”

Through his work with the club, Kodiak was introduced to Kunio Kobayashi, a 62-year-old bonsai master. A four-time winner of the prestigious Prime Minister Award, Kobayashi offered Kodiak the position of bonsai apprentice, caring for 1,000 bonsai trees in the Shunkaien Bonsai Nursery and Museum, just east of Tokyo.

As an apprentice, Kodiak lived in a 6- by 15-foot unheated room in Master Kobayashi’s workshop, complete with traditional Japanese paper walls. For 28 days a month (Kodiak received two days vacation a month), Kodiak worked from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., watering, pruning and wrapping bonsai trees.

“I was surrounded by the most amazing and artistic trees in the world,” Kodiak recalls. “Some were as many as 800 years old and sold for up to $300,000. Those trees relied on my daily care to keep them alive.”

But Kodiak nearly froze in the process.

On cold, winter nights, the only warmth in Kodiak’s apartment came from the battery of his laptop computer. While he wrote rambling essays to family and friends, or applications to American business schools, Kodiak would move his laptop up and down his legs to keep himself warm.

Had it not been for educational opportunities in the United States — he is currently pursuing a master’s degree in business administration at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. — Kodiak may never have returned to the United States.

“I came back because American business schools are far superior to their international counterparts,” he says.

He would have loved to return to Purdue for his master’s degree, but that would have been too easy. He wanted an educational experience different from his undergraduate days.

Kodiak selected William and Mary after meeting one of the school’s recruiters in Japan. Kodiak is one of 66 students learning what he calls, “fundamental business skills” he feels will help him make his mark in the international business world.

“I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do, but I want to get back to Asia,” Kodiak says.

Kodiak has submitted a business plan to work as an intern in Cambodia.

“Silks are produced by the peasants throughout the country,” Kodiak explains, “then brought into the boutiques in the larger cities for sale. There is no advertising, no central production facility; they don’t even have cash registers.

“It is a fantastic opportunity to live and work in a different environment. It would be an interesting task. Implementing change in a place like that is one thing. But then to make those changes stick, especially as an outsider, well, that is another thing all together.”

Kodiak knows it won’t be easy. But this is one cowboy who wouldn’t have it any other way.

Contact Kodiak at Cowboykodiak@hotmail.com