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TI: Okay, so this is... so you went to Japan about 1939? '38/'39?

MO: No, '39 I graduated.

TI: Okay, '39 you graduated, then you went to Japan, and you said this was a three-year program. So at some point -- well, before we go to the war, when you were going to this, this Women's Art College, could people... or as a Nisei, how were you different than the other, the other girls at this college?

MO: Well, I painted, so I was able to get in. In fact, I had some lessons at Academy of Arts before I went to Japan, so the basics. And while I was an art major in Hawaii, at high school, so I had no trouble, and I enjoyed doing that.

TI: But I was thinking more in terms of, like, language. Was your language different than the Japanese women there?

MO: No, no. I spoke their Japanese language, so they had no trouble with it.

TI: And so in Japan, people couldn't tell that you were Nisei?

MO: No. The only thing they would tease me was that I walked different. I walked too fast. [Laughs]

TI: And that's how they could tell that you were Japanese, okay.

MO: In fact, there's some, we had self-portraits of all my classmates. In fact, I have it in the...

TI: Oh, that's okay. We'll just describe it. So...

MO: So we had lots of fun. We would go sketching. Today we're going to go sketching for the outside, the flowers are beautiful so we're all going to go paint. So there were twelve students in that art class, and they're all women. So we had a special name, Juunisaikai, so I enjoyed that art class with the special group of women. In fact, many years ago, they came to, some of them came to Hawaii to have a reunion here in Hawaii.

TI: Oh, that must have been special.

MO: Uh-huh.

TI: Which, as you're talking, I'm wondering how common was it for Niseis from either Hawaii or the West Coast to visit Japan during this time period? Were there very many Niseis who were in Japan?

MO: During the war?

TI: Well, right before the war. Yeah, right before the war.

MO: There were many from the mainland. But from Hawaii, not too many. But people like I was hired by the Japanese government because I spoke English and I spoke --

<End Segment 10> - Copyright ©2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.