<Begin Segment 23>

AI: Well, then how did it come about that -- or how was it decided that you would be taking this trip to Japan, and was that only your mother --

MY: Because after my mother -- after Mom, our mother, re- --

TY: Recovered --

MY: -- recovered from the illness -- and I think they -- that my dad thought it would be good for her to get away for a while.

TY: Good therapy for her to --

MY: For her to visit with her family because she was sick for such a long time. So it was just soon after she, she came home from the hospital. And, and she -- he thought that it would quicken her recovery to go and visit her family. I think that was one of the reasons we went. So the three of us -- four of us went to Japan.

TY: So Mother and three of us, and -- Mike stayed home, though. The four of us.

MY: And then, that was in -- yeah. So it was, so she came home and she -- shortly after Easter, and then we went to, we went to Japan after our school year was finished that year. So it must have been June. Maybe sometime in June we left for Japan, and then we, we stayed, we stayed in Japan, and you came home in the fall.

TY: I came home before the fall quarter started -- I mean, the school started in the fall --

MY: In September.

TY: -- because I didn't want to miss school. So I came home by myself. By myself meaning a friend of folks, Mr. Tamai?

MY: Oh, really?

TY: I think he was -- anyway, he, he brought me home with him, a friend of, a family friend. And the only thing I remember vividly about that is that the captain of the sh- --

MY: Of the ship.

TY: -- boat, Heia-maru, I just thought of it now. I think it was -- the name of the boat was Heia-maru. Anyway, the captain of the ship was a friend of my dad who came from the same mura as my dad did in -- and from Fukuoka-ken. And I remember Dad telling me that he -- just paid just third-class fare to -- and I thought I was going to end up on the bottom of the deck someplace, you know. Well, I end up in a first-class cabin, and I just lived like a king. I, like I felt like I owned the boat because the captain let me go on the top of -- onto the bridge, and I steered the boat a couple of times and I had the run of the boat. And I'd be playing card game with one, one of the older men, and they'd bring me drinks. And oh, it was really the life of Riley then. [Laughs] I really had a wonderful time. I remember that. I thought, boy, this is what it's like --

JY: This is living, yeah.

TY: -- to live like a king, you know. [Laughs]

AI: Wow, what an experience. Well --

TY: And you came home -- you people came home -- what?

MY: Following year.

TY: Following year?

MY: Uh-huh.

JY: You were there that long? Yeah, you were gone, gone a long time.

MY: See, we went to Korea after you left.

TY: Yeah. And I -- the only thing I remember about coming home -- after we got home was Dad did the cooking. What he did cook was, what it amounted to was -- we always liked unagi. You know, the eel, canned eel? We had -- oh, we had unagi donburi at home. Well, the way Dad prepared it was -- you know, the, those came in like -- looked like sardine cans. You know, this thin and about this big. He'd open the can, put the can on the burner and heat up the fish that way. And then she'd make -- he'd make rice, and we'd put that on the rice, and that was our meal. And by the time you people got home, I finally got tired of it. [Laughs]

JY: You mean every day?

TY: Every day for a long time. [Laughs]

AI: Well, what about that time in Japan? I'm wondering, you know, I've heard from some other folks who in their childhood were taken to Japan and made fun of when they got to Japan. Did you have any of that kind of experience?

TY: No.

MY: Yeah.

TY: We were with our rela-, I -- as I remember, we were -- visited the relatives, right? And stayed with them, and they really treated us very well.

MY: Oh, they were wonderful, yeah.

TY: Yeah.

JY: You didn't go to school or anything?

MY: Yeah, I went to school.

JY: Were you exposed to other kids?

TY: You went to school?

MY: Well, I, after you left, we went to Korea.

TY: Yeah -- oh, that's right.

TY: Yeah.

MY: Yeah. And then we, we were -- I don't remember having --

TY: Well, we had an uncle living in Korea who ran a geisha house.

MY: He had a rest-, a large restaurant. He owned a large restaurant.

TY: It was a very, very large restaurant. He was very well-to-do, so, these people lived it up pretty well, right?

MY: And then he also owned, owned a geisha house with geishas in it.

TY: In Korea.

MY: That was a little distance from the restaurant. And I remember for the first time in my life, you know, I saw the geisha arriving. They all arrived in the jinrikisha, you know. And it was just like this old-fashioned -- you know, like something in the movies?

TY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MY: And these geisha would -- and they always had a handmaiden with them. It was like --

TY: Each -- each one?

MY: -- the geisha, yeah.

TY: Oh.

MY: Each one had a very young girl, about my age --

TY: Like an apprentice, huh?

MY: Yeah. I was about eleven or twelve at the time. And the girls looked like very young. They didn't have any makeup on. They just had very plain clothes. And the geishas, you know, were all, they were just decked up in this very glamorous clothes. And the -- and the handmaiden would help them off the -- off the jinrikisha, you know, and, and they would come into the restaurant. And that's for the evening. But I remember just standing in the doorway almost every day going, you know. It was just, it was just very fascinating, glamorous life that was there. But, and Joe was -- and the one thing that you remember about that was not -- the taking a bath. Do you remember that?

JY: What? No.

MY: Oh, you don't remember? We would take -- you remember taking a, trying to take -- our putting you in a bath in our house?

JY: In Seattle, I remember that. But not in Korea.

MY: Well, maybe it started in Japan -- in Korea then.

JY: Maybe that's why I hated it so much in Seattle. All -- the first recollection I had was our bathtub in Seattle.

TY: Well, I --

MY: Well, we were --

TY: I do remember now --

MY: -- the Japanese, you know, had this thing about taking a bath every single day.

TY: Oh.

MY: And he hated taking a bath. I mean, he just -- and he'd start screaming. I guess it was the first time you were in the Japanese tub then.

JY: Probably, then, because I don't remember that part.

MY: You probably, we probably got the Japanese tub later, because, anyway, but in Korea he, he wouldn't take a bath. And, and Uncle -- you know, our uncle --

JY: Oh, I, when you told me that, I thought you were talking about him in Seattle. But you're talking about in Korea. Oh.

MY: No, but in Korea, yeah. And, and he -- oh, yeah.

JY: Oh, then I don't remember that at all.

MY: And you were screaming and screaming and wouldn't take a bath. And, and we were saying, "Well, sometimes he doesn't like to take a bath," and he --

JY: Well, it was hot.

MY: [Laughs]

JY: You know, they just put wood under that thing, and they just kept boiling the water until it was -- and then they would stick you in like a lobster, and I, I didn't like it, you know, so... [Laughs]

MY: And so anyway --

JY: I don't know what the big deal was. It was hot.

MY: -- so our uncle and aunt, you know, they were just scandalized. Here's this child who doesn't like to take baths. So I remember my uncle, our uncle sent to a store for -- to a toy store. And they brought this big basket of toys. And he -- they delivered it to the house. And then they were supp-, they told Joe, "You can pick out anything you want to," and then he -- they picked out some bath toys, and they, they were buying -- and it was kind of sweet, you know, because he was trying to, to get you to --

JY: Bribe me.

TY: To bribe you. Appease you.

MY: -- to take a bath. And so he, so he got all these toys to -- and they said, "Okay. You could have these toys if you want, if you will take a bath." And they -- and then he remembers the, we had a -- I think it was that time we must have come back with a bath -- Japanese. So we had a Japanese bathtub in the basement in Beacon Hill. And he remembers vividly how he hated to take that bath.

JY: Yeah, that was awful.

MY: To take a bath. He was just deathly --

TY: No, but I -- now, that, that just made me think of -- for the first time I've thought in a long time, but I remember that trip to Japan I got boils. And we went to --

MY: Boils?

TY: Yeah, because the water that we drank or something, and I got boils all over my body.

MY: Really?

TY: And Mr. --

MY: Tamai?

TY: One of the, one of the houses that we went to in, no, in Fukuoka, one of our relatives', uncle's house. And he believed -- what he believed was, you know, not waiting for the boil to come to a head. He thought the best way is to get that boil go -- you know, get that, all that pus out of the boil. So he'd sit on me and he'd --

MY: Eew.

TY: Oh, that was painful. And about three of them he did that to me. I've still got scars of it in the back.

JY: Really? [Laughs]

TY: Yeah. You don't remember that, huh?

JY: She wouldn't remember it; you would. [Laughs]

TY: No, but you were there. My goodness. [Laughs]

MY: I don't remember. [Laughs]

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.