<Begin Segment 16>

AI: So, we're continuing our interview with Mr. Roy Matsumoto, and Roy, before our last break, you were just talking about living in Japan. And you were attending chugakko and as a young teenager you were telling about some of the training that you had in school and subjects in school. And also, I wanted to ask you, what kinds of things did you do for fun as a young teenager, thirteen or fourteen in those days?

RM: Well, I have the brother so the play was a brother or I have a lot of cousins and both my mother's side and father's side is lotta, you know, big family, so I have a lot of cousins. So they come to our place and play card or Japanese cards, karuta they called it. And chess.

AI: And sometimes did you also go fishing?

RM: Yes, that was the summertime mostly, or springtime or weekend wherever time because at the time, even though my grandfather retire, but still young, when I was young, so he retire early like I told you before. So he liked to go fishing. What he'd do is, more or less, he'd doin', supplement his income and what he does is, he doesn't take a fish to market right away, and he hold in a big bamboo basket and when he catch it just put 'em in there. And the wintertime or rainy day, take to market so they get good price. And so that's more or less his hobby and since I was a small kid, my fingers very sensitive so when the fish nibble I know it's a bite, then I catch it. So my grandfather is the kind not too sensitive so until he's hooked he doesn't know. So I was a better fisherman than him. Then, that's made me go and fishing. It's become one of my hobbies there.

TI: Well, while you were fishing with your grandfather you mentioned earlier how he would tell stories, he was a good storyteller.

RM: Uh-huh. Oh, meantime what he's doin' is he always tell me a story or something I should know, the thing he learned. At the time they didn't have -- when grandfather was a young kid, didn't have school. So what they did is they called terakoya that is in the temple, there's a priest teaches. So he went to that. That's why he learned.

AI: So that's --

RM: See, he's very knowledgeable people.

AI: Well, I don't know very much about the kinds of teaching in the temple, but was a lot of that teaching through stories, telling the stories and those were learning stories?

RM: Yes, learning, too, and also writing and reading.

AI: Is there any story that stands out in your mind that your grandfather used to tell you?

RM: Well, a lotta things. I couldn't... too many, but, well, all the folk songs and stories and sing like that, too. And, of course, some of 'em you learn in school, but some of things --

AI: And was this Buddhist temple?

RM: Buddhist temple. By the way, for your question I wrote it down but my father and mother became a Christian. What happened was, while I was in Japan, I had a younger brother born. But he suffocated in a washtub and drowned, so lost. Then he became religious and he went to church and, well, Bible study and things like that. So...

AI: So after --

RM: So meantime, they took me to a Japanese church. But when I came back, the classmates was a Christian and so went to Presbyterian Church and denomination but when my... well, that's way ahead of story, but anyway, my wife was, became Methodist, Free Methodist, see. But I didn't have any denomination, I don't, any church, but at the time, Japan, I went to Buddhist church and Sunday school.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.