<Begin Segment 33>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: You were on the ship, and on the way to the U.S., you said that the picture brides were boarding as well, right?

AT: Huh?

TY: The picture brides, too. The brides who got married by photos.

AT: There were many people who had picture marriages. We all came together. In their sleeves, they wore kimono, they wore Japanese robes, and the ship arrived, right? The husbands-to-be were there to pick them up. They saw the pictures from the underneath their sleeves like this, and they looked for their husband, well, they looked and tried to find their husband. Then, Terao said, "Why don't I help you look for your husband. He looks like the one in the picture, but the man in the picture looks twenty-five or six, but his face looks like he is at least fifty." [Laughs] He said that. It was true. They sent the pictures they took when they were young. There was a hotel called the Fuji Hotel, it is still there, right? There, they were staying. After landed, some brides already escaped within the same evening. I read on the newspapers and heard from people.

TY: There were people like that.

AT: There were. There were some. It was their fault because they sent the pictures from their youth, right? They sent the pictures and lied about their age. There were people like that. It created a lot of trouble back then. There was a place called the Fuji Hotel, and they hosted those brides who came from Japan, and they were there to pick them up. There were picture marriages. All of them, they wore the same style, wrapping this thing around their waist. Terao was inquisitive, so he offered that he would take a look at it, then they said, "Yes, please take a look." "If it was him, the faces are similar, but there must be a huge age difference," he said. There were many people like that.

TY: On the way to the U.S. on the ship, it was before they met their husbands, right? What kind of things did such brides talk about? They must have heard what the U.S. was like, right?

AT: No, well, I was talking about it. But, I never said that there was money everywhere in the U.S. We traveled in Kyushu after we got married. I thought I wanted to go to Kyushu since I had never been there, and he said that we could go together, and to Kyushu...

TY: That was with Mr. Terao, right? But, the picture brides, they came to the U.S. to meet their husbands they never met before.

AT: Yes, that's right.

TY: They came to meet their husbands, right? What kind of conversation, what did they say about the U.S.?

AT: Let's see. There were people who said that they were tricked. They sent pictures, lying about their age. They sent the pictures of the time they were young. That, they were the pictures from their twenties, so they were young. Once they came over, they were around fifty. Then the brides landed, and at a place called the Fuji Hotel, some brides escaped within the same night.

TY: But, before they came, they didn't know about it.

AT: No.

TY: How, so...

AT: Because they sent the pictures from their youth.

TY: Did the brides look happy?

AT: So, probably so. Terao was willing to help them out. He said, "I can take a look. Let me take a look." [Laughs] He said so, and he took a look of pictures.

TY: Probably, everybody, like that, they thought they could live a nice life after they came to the U.S. Those people...

AT: There must have been such people.

TY: There must have been.

AT: I...

TY: Did you hear such stories?

AT: What?

TY: On the ship. Those brides who were expecting the nice life in the U.S.

AT: I really didn't hear any.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.