<Begin Segment 35>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: About the picture brides, you told us what happened after they met their husbands, that pictures were different.

AT: It was... many things happened, that was, the ship arrived, right? Then, they took out the pictures from their sleeves, and they looked at them really hard to compare the faces. There were many people who said, "That person, his face looks very alike, but he is a lot older." They sent the pictures from their youth. Terao was so curious. He said, "Let me look for him for you," and he saw the pictures. "Look, this picture was taken when he was thirty or younger, and his face looks over fifty now." [Laughs] Like this, they landed. There was the Fuji Hotel right there. It is still there. Or is it? There, most of the picture brides spent night. If they didn't check in right away, they would run away.

TY: But, those brides were in about early twenties, right?

AT: Sho ga nai, right? They lied about their age, those who lived here told lies, the lies. Even though they were in their fifties, they still told them that they were in their thirties or twenties because it was the picture marriage, right? They sent the picture from their youth. When you looked at it, they were young in the pictures. The faces are very similar. Terao, he was inquisitive, "Let me take a look," and he saw the pictures, he said, "The third from that end looks like him, but whatever the way you look at him, he looks near fifty, that person. But, in this picture, he looks about thirty." He said so. Then, that night, the brides ran away from the Fuji Hotel. There were many people like that.

TY: After that, after several years, did you meet the brides you met on the ship in downtown?

AT: Never.

TY: You never met any of them again?

AT: I didn't see them. Nobody in our group was a picture bride. Everybody came over after they got married. I was in the class of the people who were married in Japan and got the permits there. So, I didn't meet those people. So...

TY: Then, really, when you got off the ship, was it the first time you met those brides?

AT: After the ship arrived, and they were calling for the brides. We looked from the ship because we heard that they were there to pick them up, and we saw them downstairs...

TY: So it was your first time to meet them.

AT: That was the first time we saw them. Oh, this lady was a bride, and that lady was a bride. But, the ages were different by far. We said with friends that when we saw boys, they looked over fifty. We saw them really well.

TY: Then, actually, you didn't have a chance to really get to know each other.

AT: Umm, no. We didn't.

TY: Oh, I see.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.