<Begin Segment 22>

TI: So you returned to Hawaii, so tell me what Hawaii was like for you. Could you remember anything?

PY: Well you know, I lived with my brother, Ralph, for a while. But they were very nice, but because I graduated from college already, and you know, you cannot -- although they said okay -- you cannot forever live like that. You have to start working, you have to earn money and you have to take care of yourself. So that's what... I went to UH for a while, but I start looking for a job. And because, those days, of course we had many Japanese language jobs using Japanese language, but not too many Japanese from Japan was here like we have now. So I went to the radio announcer and television announcer, and also Japanese schoolteacher, many thing like that I did.

TI: And so, like, the TV station announcer, this was a Japanese language?

PY: Yes, Japanese language, yeah. Radio, too, is Japanese language. That was Channel 4.

TI: So because of your Japanese language abilities, you were able to get jobs.

PY: Right. But the TV station wasn't every day. Japanese language was only on Saturday, about three or four hours.

TI: So at this point, how much English did you remember?

PY: Well, I had a hard time with English, yes. I had a very hard time. Even now, my Japanese is better than my English, yeah.

TI: And so how did you re-teach yourself English? What did you do?

PY: Well, I did many things, but I read the English newspaper and try to learn the vocabulary or whatever. But sometimes my grandson laugh at me, my English. [Laughs]

TI: So you came back to Honolulu in 1951 after you graduated. In 1952, that's when your father died, so right after.

PY: Right, right.

TI: And so do you recall what happened, why he died?

PY: No. I guess exactly, I don't know how old he was, but the... he had a stroke, that's why we went Japan. But after that, he had stroke twice, yeah. He had stroke twice, and then I guess high blood pressure and stroke, I think, that was his cause, I think. But I couldn't go back to the funeral because I was still not established yet.

TI: Right, okay. And then a little bit after that, my notes show that you were drafted into the U.S. Army?

PY: Yes.

TI: And was that surprising for you, that you got drafted?

PY: No, no, no. But they found out that I had an old scar, you know, in my lung. So I was classified as 4-H, yeah.

TI: And that scar, was that tuberculosis?

PY: Yeah, tuberculosis, yes. In Japan I had that. So I went a little while at the hospital.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.