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AI: Well, so tell me then, after you, the Teiya maru then finally arrived in Japan, where, what port was that that you arrived?

MK: Yokohama, I think it was. It's so vague. I can't vouch that it was, but I think it was a port, so...

AI: And what do you recall of that actual, arriving there and realizing you're in Japan?

MK: I really don't remember. There was no fanfare whatsoever because Japan was seriously at war. Things are very depressed. And we, I think we would've had to be given some money to, you know, buy a fare and get back to our destination. So we went to the honke which was in Okayama country, and we found our way. And Grandma, of course, welcomed us and we had the room because she was the only one living in this, it was really a mansion in that part of the country. It was a nice honke home and we made ourself comfortable. And well, at least we had a place to go. And we were one of the lucky ones.

AI: But as you say, they weren't really too happy --

MK: (In) general, the Japanese government was not happy. And then (...) -- when we settled down, my father tried to re-, get reacquainted with his other relatives that we visited in 1938, which always greeted him because, and one of the cousins mentioned that, oh, they loved uncle Joji because he would always come home with the kori with all the Hershey candy and, you know, he was the good will uncle. (...) We were welcomed before, but this time things were different. They weren't about to share anything because it was getting pretty bad, especially the city people. So, it wasn't a happy time by any means. Well, my father was sick all this time with ulcers because he had developed ulcers in even Montana because this, heavy, loss of everything and all the family, and all his employees who were dependent on him. He just felt like they belonged to him. And I remember, (...) -- and at that time it was, milk was the treatment. And I hear now it's, that's no longer, that's probably the worst thing you could do, to drink milk or cream. That was the treatment in those days. So he suffered from that, camp days. And I believe that shortened his life, 'cause he died at sixty-two (from cancer of the stomach).

AI: Well, now here he had tried to think about this being a positive change. He was hoping that, 'course, you'd reunite your family, everyone would be together. And he thought perhaps things would be better. What could he say after you returned and saw the situation in Japan?

MK: Well, I've heard other Issei in a similar circumstances say, well, they said, "Warui koto shita," to bring back their American kids. But my father never really apologized or said, "I made a big mis-," he never said that, but I, you could tell he's suffering so much that I knew, he knew he made the wrong decision. So, again, I think it was more bitter than sweet. [Laughs]

AI: So, tell me, can you kind of describe what this main, the honke, the main family home looked like? What, what kind of a building was it? What kind of space, or the environment around it, what was it like?

MK: Oh, well, it was a contained -- it had, it had a white wall that contained the home. They're very territorial, you know. And they, these are things I learned from my grandmother, but they often -- with the pride, I mean, Japanese, I don't know if it's a bad trait or a good trait, but they have so much pride that they would say -- my grandma used to say that, "Well, this house is especially a good house because the main core, on the roof, that holds the house together, it's one, one tree." Oh, such pride. And all the woodwork on the house walls, or whatever, or the post that's used in the house, the less knots it has, the purer they are, the stronger, straighter they are. So she would go to that extent. And then the tile, it has the family crest on it, or whatever. And (...) the honke had three toilets, one was the guest toilet, which I used to sneak in once in a while because it had the best paper -- [laughs] -- and then the family bathroom, and then one which the maids used. And that was not in the house proper. The ofuro was in another, had a separate, separate building, and the bathroom was a separate building. But, you sense that the -- what is it? -- the pride, but then, they were very proud of it, let's put it mildly. [Laughs]

AI: So, it sounds like the house was quite grand.

MK: Substantial, uh-huh. And then, oh, when we went upstairs, the attic, it was not livable, but it had trunks and shelves full of material things. And these were primarily for guests and for the hoji, the memorial days. So they had beautiful lacquer bowls, I think, at least to serve fifty people and futon, you know, the quilts. Well, those were for guests. Now if you go to Japan, the guests are always treated just royally. Well, see, we were not guests. So, even in the hard times, we were not offered to use these things. And you know, it's a weird kind of a situation where the, it's just reserved for those memorial hoji time, people coming from out of town. But as far as material things, yes, they had lots of chawans, owans, they were all separate, upstairs (in) the attic. And so, I think the more material things they have, that's their mark of wealth, or whatever.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.