<Begin Segment 32>

TI: But I was thinking, but when you went to those outlying communities, they weren't from Hiroshima, they were from different --

RM: No, no. From all over in Japan.

TI: And so they didn't, did they still know your grandfather as much?

RM: No, no. That was when I was in Los Angeles.

TI: Well, why don't we talk about that a little bit because I'm curious, it comes up later, but you learned something really important by, by working with or delivering to these different people from different parts of Japan.

RM: Yes, what I do is when I deliver there and they discussing something in a strange language, I, of course, some of it standard Japanese mixed in, so, some part I pick it up, but exactly I don't know what they... so what I do is something I didn't hear, like Kumamoto, there's a, batten, it's not only Kumamoto but Kyushu, the northern part of Kyushu speaks same as Saga and Fukuoka and says, such as, "Sogan koto naka batten," I didn't know that. Now I know. But see, so in case some word come out like that, "What does it mean in standard Japanese?" So they're obliged to explain to me and so I wrote it down and then I remember that's what it means.

AI: And excuse me, but what does that mean in English?

RM: What did I say?

AI: Batten?

RM: Oh, sogan koto naka batten? Oh, "no such a thing," something like that. No such a, such a thing. In standard Japanese it's sonna koto arimasen. Then they say it sogan koto naka batten.

AI: It's quite different.

RM: "Yoka batten" means "that's good." Then they call Kumamoto batten and Kumamoto people always put the batten there and Hiroshima says gansu. And there it is.

AI: So the different, the different dialects are quite --

RM: Different dialects for different places. And I am familiar with Hiroshima because everybody talked like that and I grew up with that so I learned, I thought it was part of a standard Japanese until go to school, went to school and then there was local dialects and the book, my nephew just made it; it's all this Japanese slang and especially local slang. I don't think anybody other than Hiroshima people understand that and not the standard Japanese, with mixed Japanese and that's somewhat familiar to me. Some of 'em I just learned, new things and that's what older people talk about. So, go different places there different people talk but I didn't pay much attention to. But most of 'em here it was like a Kyushu dialect such as Fukushi-, I mean as Fukuoka, Saga and some Nagasaki and some Kumamoto and I have experience with Kuma-, I mean, Kagoshima, Mr. Yamaguchi was a Kagoshima and they talk I don't completely understand so I don't even care to write it down because they strictly different even though same island, Kyushu. But when they spoke in standard Japanese, very nice and I appreciated, that's why later on, course been changed, but...

AI: Well, so, before we get there, I wanted to ask a couple of things about this, these years while you were doing the delivery work. I think you mentioned that it was about 1937 when your brother Tsutomu, or Tom, returned to California.

RM: Uh-huh.

AI: And what was it that brought him back, or why did he come back to California?

RM: Well, everybody want to come because in Japan, no future in it. And since American-born and he knows he went to school to United States, too, but, well, of course friend, everybody scatter. But his idea was I'm here, too, so you know, he know where to come. So he came to me, but I won't be able to support him. But so I asked him to go some schoolboy, first to register. So he went to Los Angeles High School then also after that, graduated he went to City College. And that's why he became officer because he was drafted but he went to OCS and became an officer and became, end up a colonel. But anyway, he came and other brother told me they want to come but then lost the opportunity, then the war broke out, then now they get stuck and put 'em in Japanese army and...

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