<Begin Segment 15>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: Speaking of that, you arrived in San Francisco and stayed at the Aki Hotel.

YI: We stayed for one month.

TY: You stayed that long?

YI: The reason was this. We were originally to go to Berkeley. To a church in Berkeley. But then the ship was delayed. Then some other minister went there. We had nowhere to go. The head minister had returned to Japan [inaudible]. So about one month we had nothing else to do. So we went to the temple every day. We played ping pong. We were tired everyday. Then [inaudible] and we had no money. We spent all our money to buy the ship boarding tickets. So we went into debt immediately. We repaid slowly after we moved to Fresno. We never had much luck with money from the beginning. [Laughs]

TY: You said that the ship was delayed. How many days was it delayed?

YI: I wonder why it was delayed.

TY: Even if it was delayed, it must have been only a matter of a few days.

YI: Because of our wedding and other circumstances, the delay was caused not by ship but by the Ichikawas. [Laughs]

TY: You never know what happens in life. [Laughs]

YI: We kept having mistakes from the beginning. [Laughs]

TY: Then, you spent one month in San Francisco sightseeing and shopping for clothes...

YI: We went around San Francisco everyday. Going up and down the hills. We were young. Then it happened that there was a convention for the young people. In Arameda or somewhere. There we met a head minister of Fresno temple, Reverend Kyogoku. He asked us which temple we were going to. We told him that we had nowhere to go. Then he told us to come to his temple. So we went there.

TY: That's how you ended up there. Because of that chance meeting...

YI: Because of the connection. Reverend Kyogoku apologized and asked us to take the night shift. So after we went there, Reverend Ichikawa would go out at night. I felt so lonely. I was new in the area. There was another house in the same yard. The house of a photographer. The wife was of the same age as I and spoke Japanese well. Because she was there...

TY: Was she of the second generation?

YI: She was second generation. She spoke Japanese well and was also a member of the temple. She was Masami Kaisho.

TY: When you were taken for shopping after arriving in San Francisco, it was the first time you wore western-style clothing, wasn't it? Or did you wear the western style clothes in Japan, too?

YI: At that time, I went shopping for a toothbrush. How much was it? Fifty cents or sixty cents. In those days. A toothbrush. I was flabbergasted. I had never bought such an expensive toothbrush in Japan. I was totally in shock.

TY: Who took you shopping? Shopping for such daily needs? Did some minister's wife in San Francisco take you? Shopping. Shopping in San Francisco.

YI: There was a store in front of the hotel. In San Francisco, only when I needed to buy clothes, a mistress at the hotel took me. But I hardly went shopping. I didn't have money. [Laughs]

TY: So then, you were to go to Fresno. If you had not met the minister from Fresno at that time, what do you think would have happened?

YI: We might still be wandering around in that area. It so happened that there was a convention for the young people. The minister came to the meeting. We knew him a little. Since he asked where we were going, we answered, "We don't know. We don't know where we are going."

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.