<Begin Segment 9>

AI: Well, I wanted to ask, you mentioned just a little while ago, that, about you and Takeshi going to Japan, you thought to visit your grandfather... well, what do you remember about the trip? Do you recall anything about being on the ship, what that journey was like?

RM: Well, I never seen the ocean -- well, I mean, I been to beach, but I was surprised. You know how the ocean big. Then saw a flying fish jumping, and whale shows up and things like that, or... right now, ocean, then see porpoise going around there or... so, I enjoyed that because gonna go to vacation, see, I thought.

AI: It must have been an exciting --

RM: So, I didn't think of anything else. I just enjoyed the trip until get there.

AI: And so, when you got to Japan, then how did you travel to the village? Did you take a train, or...

RM: Yes, first, first, I don't know exactly what port it was. I think it was Yokohama. And got on the train because my great-uncle took care of everything, so, just to follow there, then all of a sudden come to, got on the train and get off the station. Then he's the one took me to Grandfather, introduced to me. And I never saw my grandmother before. And that was a nice, nice visit because I met my grandfather there, and...

AI: Well, what did their home look like? Was it, it must've been very different from your home in California?

RM: Oh yes, very much different because this house been pretty well-built because I think rich people built one and my grandfather had money when he went back and bought the house, so it was a nice house. Of course, by now, it's pretty old, close to a hundred years old, but at the time this was... let's say about, well, eighty is before it, so, at the time a pretty good house. So still, well, of course old now, but...

AI: Can you recall what it looked like or what the land around your home looked like, your grandfather's home?

RM: Well, entirely different because I live in the farm here, then went down -- this is the town like a residential district and the streets were very narrow and close together and lot of people. And fortunately, the school was half a block away so we stayed home and when the bell rang, just go to school. That was nice.

AI: Well, before we get to your, talking about your school days there, I wanted to ask, who else was living in your grandfather's house there with you?

RM: Just grandfather and grandmother.

AI: And you and Takeshi?

RM: And me and my brother.

AI: Well, and then you said that you were quite disappointed when you found out that you were not going back home to California at the end of the summer.

RM: Yes, I got homesick then. I think I cried, but... it was very sad. Then, so we played to forget this and then made a friend there. Well, have to, gave up the old because I couldn't do anything.

AI: Right, so your grandparents --

RM: And then I played my brother, then he liked to play... then when he was young I took care of him. But then he get a little older, he talk back to me. And he want to play Japanese chess. So, of course, I'm elder, older, then I knew how to do it so let him win sometimes, but sometime by mistake I win, then he got mad, then started to cry and threw -- [laughs] -- well, anyway...

AI: So sometimes you would fight.

RM: Yeah.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.