<Begin Segment 42>

AI: Well then, let's see... another thing that I wanted to get to ask you about was in the 1980s. You and Art took that trip to Japan.

BS: Oh, yes.

AI: And you had mentioned going there. And was that 1984?

BS: '84, yes.

AI: And so tell me about that trip.

BS: Well, we, we went with a group that was, that we joined in Japan. So there were, there were about, I'm trying to think... one, maybe about five Nisei couples. All the rest were Caucasian. And they were from, some, there were a few from England, from Florida and L.A. and, but it was, it was mixed. And because, I think because we were mixed with Caucasians, we got better service than if it was a Nisei group, if it was an all-Nisei group. And, let's see... at that time, in Japan they were having, you know how they have serials, every day on TV, like they had the Oshin. Well, they were having, I think it was called Amerika Monogatari and it was telling about the camp. And so we became like celebrities, every time, we would visit our relatives or something, they'd introduce us to, like one of Art's cousins took us to a karaoke bar and then... well, Art's family, they sing, I don't sing, but they asked him to sing so he sang. And then they introduced him and they said, "He's a Nisei from America," and then everybody clapped and they were... we were like celebrities because they were watching this serial on TV.

AI: How interesting. What a coincidence.

BS: Yes.

AI: Did you, did you watch any of the serial?

BS: I think they showed it later on in the States, in the... we have Japanese program on the weekends and we saw some parts of it.

AI: Wow, my goodness. Well, so, as you were traveling around in Japan, I'm wondering what... how did you... did it seem familiar to you, some of the things that were Japanese that you had never, you had never been to Japan before. But did it seem like a familiar atmosphere or did it seem kind of foreign and... I'm just wondering how it struck you.

BS: Well, we went on a tour first, which was, the tour was the Ura Nihon tour which is on the Japan Sea side, which was a fairly new tour. And so, 'cause we wanted to see the old Japan, not the Tokyo, the big city and that. And so that was nice to see people working in the rice paddies and that. So we liked that. And then after, well, and seeing the different, going to Tokyo and going to, was it Fujisan and different places. And then after the tour we, the tour ended in Kyoto. And then I have a, my oldest sister's daughter is married to a Japanese and they live in Kyoto, outskirts of Kyoto. So we went to visit them. And then, then we visited relatives. And I had a cousin, my mother's oldest sister's daughter lived in Osaka. And we visited with them. And then we went to Okayama, which is where my mother... we stayed with another cousin on my mother's side. And there were my father's side relatives, too, in Okayama. And then later on we went to Fukuoka which is Art's cousin's side. But it was going there and seeing the things. Well, there was one, one man who, I think actually he was my age and he seemed to, every time the Morita relatives would go, he would take us to the graves, to the grave sites and to different, where the old home was and everything. So it, there were familiar areas that we had seen from pictures and my dad telling us about. And then we would see, like I would see my cousin and so, and then you would see the resemblance. One of my cousins looked just like my oldest sister Dorothy and then someone said that there was another cousin that I looked like. And you would see the family resemblances.

AI: That must have been so interesting.

BS: Uh-huh, uh-huh. It was just really neat.

<End Segment 42> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.