<Begin Segment 38>

TI: So let's go to Nagasaki and tell me what you found there.

JY: Well, it was just about New Year's time, so we had to delay our, moving the family 'til after New Year's. And they said they would have housing for us. And unfortunately, there was no American compound for American personnel, so they had to remove some Japanese out of their home and give it to us.

TI: How did that make you feel?

JY: I felt rotten. Here we were complaining about our obtaining housing, then we go to Nagasaki, and this was the only choice I had. And so they obtained a very fine house, belonged to a gold miner. And he was booted out of his house and I was put in there. And I had no choice but to accept that. Here's an American of Japanese descent making my entry into Nagasaki in that fashion. I had to swallow some bitter pills and still live there for the next year and a half or two. I didn't feel good at all.

TI: Did it cause any resentment from the Japanese there that this had happened, or did nothing happen?

JY: Well, I felt that those that wanted to express any kind of feelings toward me, just did not show it. The official, and I think the official face was, "What else are you guys going to do? You guys got to have a place to live." So that the governor of the prefecture who was in charge of the area, he raised no objections, in fact, welcomed us to see, as long as we were there, that they had lost a war kind of attitude, they would do everything to make this study possible.

TI: At this point, so your wife, so you have housing, you get this house. At this point, or at what point did you start meeting relatives, your relatives in Japan? Because you had some relatives from your family.

JY: I can't recall if I was able to see them during my short stay in Tokyo, or I think it was later when I had a little time off to go to Tokyo.

TI: Well, so let's just go to that. So when you finally did, whether it was the first time or second time, when you finally did meet the relatives, who was there and what was that like?

JY: I think the first person I met was my uncle, my father's brother, older brother. He was a surgeon, and his hospital was destroyed by fire. And he greeted us as if he hadn't seen us for a week. And he had the, he was very cordial, he talked just like my brother who he had never seen, same kind of tilting of his hand, his hand structure was the same, and his expression was very much like my brother's.

TI: John?

JY: Yeah. Unfortunately John never met him, he would have been delighted to see this template. [Laughs]

TI: And it's interesting because here you're studying genetics, and here you see such a resemblance.

JY: Right.

TI: And even though they had never met, the similarities were so similar.

JY: And I can't recall when it was I went to see him, and he had already started practice again. And he said, "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but I had to take care of a patient. And then he said, "Come on in anyhow, I haven't cleaned up yet." And he had a big tray full of bloody instruments that hadn't been cleaned yet. He said, "Oh, god, these modern medicine, can't beat it," he said. "All I do is open up the stomach, take care of it, throw in some sulfa drug, and hey, no problems." He said, "Great things are going on in medicine.

TI: So when you saw that, how would you compare what he knew in terms of medical practice, and here you had just gotten some more advanced training at the most state of the art. And what was the difference in terms of medical training between the Japanese, your uncle, and what you had just received?

JY: Well, apparently he was curing the patients. And I thought they handled it a little different way, and he was just as interested in taking care of the patients as any other doctor that was working. And I thought it was great in a postwar country to be able to continue working as a surgeon.

TI: You mentioned your father's brother, but I recall that your brother had, I mean, your father had quite a few siblings. He originally had, what, seven brothers and one sister.

JY: Yeah.

TI: What about your father's other siblings?

JY: I didn't meet them at all.

TI: Because they...

JY: They were up in Matsumoto, yes.

TI: How about other relatives? Any other relatives did you get a chance to meet?

JY: Other cousins.

TI: What was that like?

JY: Well, two of my brothers, my uncle's son, they were both doctors at Tokyo University. One was more interested in sports medicine, orthopedic surgeon, the other was, eventually was head of the surgical department at Tokyo University.

TI: So I'm curious, so your uncle and his, your cousins, these were doctors. I keep hearing about how impoverished Japan was during this period. How were their families? I mean, did they have enough to eat and enough to buy things? What was their life like in Japan?

JY: We went to our cousin's home, and we just had a short get-together, but it seemed like a comfortable home. Don't you think, Aki?

TI: So you didn't really see any signs in your family of being impoverished or struggling.

JY: No, I didn't see it.

TI: And was it because they had money someplace, or was it because of their jobs that they were able to do this?

Off camera: They were all doctors.

JY: And then my cousin's husband was a banker, and he seemed to be quite well-off. He was modestly well-off economically.

TI: Now there was... earlier I saw that there was one cousin who, although he was in Tokyo, didn't want to meet you?

JY: Yes.

TI: Can you explain that, what happened?

JY: Well, there was a brother that was my uncle's son, that'd be my cousin, and he eventually became head of surgery at Tokyo University. But I think he resented the fact that I was representing the American government in this study.

TI: Now, I didn't ask this, but as representing the American government, were you still in the military?

JY: No, I was discharged.

TI: So you were a civilian employee of the government.

JY: Yes, with this special passport from the State Department to do this kind of work.

TI: Okay. And so you think your cousin resented you coming over...

JY: Well, most people associated me as part of the occupation, since all of our logistic support came from the U.S. Army. For example, every two weeks a train would, special train would come in to Nagasaki Station, all kinds of provisions, food, appliances, and we'd take a half day off to go shopping. That was extremely special privilege that everyone in Nagasaki would notice.

TI: So here you would go to the train and you could buy supplies that no one else could get.

JY: That's right, exactly. Exactly. So in that event, we were eating crow for going to study the victims' tragedy.

TI: I'm sorry, eating crow, you mean the people were eating?

JY: We were... we had to be representative of somebody that was looking after all the tragedy that they experienced, and yet on the other hand, living in the lap of luxury going to these occupation trains.

TI: So here you were in one of the nicer homes in Nagasaki, special privileges in terms of rations and getting this, and then going places where they were impoverished, they were poor.

JY: Right, exactly.

TI: And that made you feel funny.

JY: Oh, yeah, very uncomfortable.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.