<Begin Segment 39>

LH: Well, at this time I also want to talk about your relationship with your father in terms of his relationship again with the Nikkeijinkai and his role as sort of hospitality. Because there was something we had talked about earlier in a previous conversation about how you, while you were growing up, sort of became an impromptu tour guide for him. Could you describe that and what that was like?

FG: Kind of interesting. When you... I don't know whether it's because you have a driver's license and you want to drive a car and the family has a car, right, that's where it starts. Then my father was involved with Nikkeijinkai and he used to be, he was the social service chairman. And so every time there were visitors from Japan including the vessels, the naval vessels and the maritime vessels and the research vessels, if the Nikkeijinkai was involved and my father was involved and he also involved himself in it from the not only the Nikkeijinkai part of it, but then if the group was very large he would look for those who were from Hiroshima, and then he got the Hiroshima Kenjinkai involved. And so then with his involvement then that meant that one, we would have a lot of visitors in the house and my mother did a lot of cooking and we entertained a lot of people. Then two, it meant that whoever drove my father's car would also drive the people that he invited, and then if my father thought that the people that he invited should have a tour of the city, then I was attached to the steering wheel, right? So, therefore, I would be driving. Well, then they would ask me what this was and what that was and then so I'd explain it. So I had to really brush up on my Japanese and really work on it, but I think it paid off. I'm a lot richer for it, but I did a lot of tour guiding and then I even graduated to the bus. One year the ships, there was a big ship that came in from Japan and they put them all, these were cadets and they put them on three buses to go to Mount Rainier. And so my father put me on one of the buses and I was a tour guide that went and if that wasn't scary. [Laughs] I had to explain everything from here to Mount Rainier, and I didn't know what it was. [Laughs] But, anyway, it was really interesting and I had to try to act very professional and I had no idea what a tour guide did, but I did it anyway. But partially what it was was the bus driver would tell me in English and then I would translate it in Japanese.

LH: You translate it over.

FG: But the part that the guys were really looking forward to was the rest stops. [Laughs] They didn't really care what I was saying. What they wanted to know -- the rest stops usually had little stores, right, usually have the little stores no matter where you are. They wanted to buy little souvenirs. So anyway, that was my --

LH: So they weren't interested in scenery, they were interested in buying.

FG: So actually I guess it wasn't too hard. They weren't really listening anyway. [Laughs]

LH: But it was interesting that your father asked you to do this instead of asking maybe another member of the kenjinkai or the Nikkeijinkai. Why did he ask you to do this?

FG: Control. Who else would you have more control over than your family? [Laughs] Yeah. I mean, when my brother was home, he would use my brother. My brother was rarely home, but then it was, it's real easy to ask family members. They're kind of appendages, right? That's why, I think. I don't know, but whatever it is, whatever you're assigned with, I think you become that much richer for because you have to do it. And I think it was much easier to give orders to me than it would be to anybody else that he knew including the people who worked for him.

<End Segment 39> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.