<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So you had brought us all the way, you had gone through Hiroshima, and you told that great story of how you took that train to the train station near Atatashima. So let's pick up the story there. So now you just get off the train, and how do you get to Atatashima?

PY: Well, there's a little boat from Kuba to Atatashima, and only twice a day, those days, go to Atatashima. That take about one hour, to reach Atatashima.

TI: And so when you go to Atatashima and you go to your home, was your mother and father there?

PY: Yeah, my mother and father, yes.

TI: So describe for me the, kind of the meeting of your mother and father and you. 'Cause they must have been worried about you, 'cause they didn't know what happened to you, right?

PY: Well, maybe I did communicate with them. But they were happy that I came back, and then they feed me good food. [Laughs] I enjoyed that.

TI: Now, do you remember what kind of food they had to feed you?

PY: Well, typical Japanese food, I guess. So that was already end of August, end of August, and I didn't know what to do. I thought that Japan lost the war, and no sense I go Waseda again, because I didn't know what's going to happen from now on in Japan. So I thought, "I have to do something to look for job." And my father's sister, older sister, used to run a big fishing company. So I approached my auntie and said, "Yeah, come and work for this fishing company." So I did one year, the fishing.

TI: And so when you say fishing, what kind of, describe what kind of work that you did.

PY: Well, at the beginning, it was sardine, iwashi, you know, the iriko, that small little fish they use for taste or this and that. Yeah, I did that, and I did all kind of fishing.

TI: And so how did you catch those little fish? Is it nets?

PY: With big net, yeah. And those days, now they do with a machine, but those days we have to do it with all hand.

TI: And that was hard work.

PY: Yeah, very hard work. And then you got to get up around five o'clock in the morning or this and that, and then go to the big boat, and then they take us, go out and get the fish. One fishing group, I think, had about twenty or twenty-five people, yeah.

TI: Now, I'm curious, so this is the end of the war. Were there very many fish left in the sea? I'm thinking that during the war, every food was so precious that they had the fishermen fish as much as they could, and I was wondering if there still was enough fish in the ocean.

PY: No, there weren't fishermen during the war. Everybody went to war. They couldn't get the fish.

TI: Oh, so there was lots of fish because there was no fisherman.

PY: Yeah, yeah. [Laughs] You know, all the young people went to the war.

TI: That's interesting because lots of people were hungry, and yet you had all the fish, but they didn't have fishermen.

PY: Yeah. They didn't have enough fishermen to go to the ocean and get the fish, because they were forced to go to the China or all over, south. So they had a hard time getting the fish from the ocean.

TI: Well, like, so in Japan, like during the war, in the United States, when the men went off to the war, sometimes the women would take the place of the men in some jobs.

PY: Yes, yes.

TI: So did that happen in Japan, too?

PY: Yes. There were many women fishermen, fisherwomen, yeah.

TI: Okay, so some women took the place.

PY: Some women took the place, right.

TI: But still, there were still lots of fish.

PY: Yeah, yeah.

TI: Okay. So you worked as a fisherman.

PY: Yeah. And you know, now, everything is improved and faster to get the fish. But those days was still, then, all labor, hand work. So you couldn't catch that much fish in those days, yeah.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.