<Begin Segment 34>

AI: Well, so now tell me, as you were approaching your father's family home, was he talking to you about his impression or did he... he must've been quite shocked by the situation in Japan.

AO: En route to the house, it was probably just about what he remembered. There were people farming, working in the field, and people on bicycles, and people with pull carts, and that... but he had to inquire, different times, talk to people where his village was. And we were going the wrong, right direction until we finally arrived to his house and his brother was living there, occupied. So he had to ask the brothers to leave. And so eventually his brother and his wife moved somewhere else. And he had lot of, some, some sisters living nearby and they would come and visit.

AI: So tell me, what did the home and the area there look like?

AO: The home had a area, homes in the area were typical Japanese construction, Japanese home. His home was constructed for his father and evidently, his father had mortgaged the property and then they built the house for him. They used used the material. And eventually my father bought the mortgage back so he felt that that house was his, he deserved it. As we entered the front door, his house was so crude that the entrance was dirt. And then the, there were two rooms to the right, and those two rooms were raised and they had the tatami mats. Then under the room to your right, underneath, they had dug out a pit and filled it with rice hull and that's where they would store the sweet potatoes and a few of the items that were preserved, kept from spoiling. And sweet potatoes, you can keep for quite a few months without spoiling.

AI: And then, was the rice farming area right, very close to the house, or farther away?

AO: His rice paddy was quite a ways from the house but the neighbors, they had rice paddy almost adjacent to their lot. And then, in front of the house was area where we could grow vegetables, strawberries, daikon, onions, watermelon, strawberries, and so there's where we could grow a few things. And then he has another area where he could grow sesame seed, and that could be made into oil, cooking oil. We could grow other vegetables, sweet potatoes. So we had plenty of area to grow necessary vegetables.

AI: So when you, you know, when you and your father then arrived there at the home, what were some of the first things you did? How did you start living there? Or, your mother and sister were already there?

AO: Yes, they were there already. And we managed to have enough blankets so that we were comfortable. We had to sleep on the floor. There's no cooking range, it's all wood-burning stoves and there was no running water, so in the corner we had a well. And the well was about ten feet deep. And in order to raise the water up we had a little bucket and a rope tied to it so we'd drop the bucket down, pull it up, and then carry the bucket into the house for cooking. And they had a furo, so we had to carry buckets of water at a time and fill the bath, furo up. And then outside we had to make a fire to heat the water. And the toilet, outside, it was a open pit for the men and the closed pit, they had a door and that's where we went to the bathroom for the other part. And the pit for the men, that was used on the vegetables to grow because there's ammonia, makes it green and the other was put into another pit out, away from the house and that was used as they would call night soil. Have you heard of night soil? Or jinpun is another term. And that was used for fertilizer. Now I believe that's not permitted anymore. So they're using chemical fertilizer now.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.