<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Right after the war, you talked about going to school, higher education. What was Japan like during this time? I'm a little amazed that Japan could come back so quickly and think about things like universities and all those things. So talk about that. How difficult were things in Japan in those months after?

FH: Uh-huh. Well, one thing, like long ago, there was the Takigawa Jiken and so forth, the Takigawa Incident and so forth. He was the professor of criminal law in Kyoto University. But he mentioned about the criminal law against the men and women and so forth. And that, because of those thing he mentioned, he said that, "You're so Westernized," and he was fired by the Japanese National Educational Headquarters. And following him, all the major professors in the law school resigned. "If we do not have the freedom of education, freedom of teaching, we'll resign with him." It's called the Takigawa Jiken, Takigawa Incident. But after the war, he resumed the post. And quite a few that worked with him became the professor at the Kyoto University and so forth. Those kind of things happened. Another thing was that there was a great influence, especially before that university, the National Higher School and so forth, those days. There was quite a bit of influence of the communist teachings. What's that... Mein Kampf and so forth, and those kind of, like Stalin's book and so forth, those things were very widely read, and there was quite a bit of shift from one end, the extreme feudalism, to the freedom extreme, more than freedom, socialism, communism and so forth. And there were quite a few students that was brainwashed, and we called that parutai, which is for the party, the National Communist Party. And there was groups like that in the, all the elite schools and so forth. But, you know, they became the leaders of the countries in the foreign service and so forth, you know, once they graduated. But there was a big shift right there.

TI: Well, they became the leaders, I mean, the ones who were -- I want to be clear about this -- that were part of the, interested in Communism? Those individuals? Or... I wasn't clear what you meant by that.

FH: Yeah. Well, they became the student of that parutai group and so forth. But what happened in the days that we went to the National Higher School was that before that, in the middle school, those guys who excelled went to the Yonin Gakkou, that goes from the seventh grade, going into the military school, preschool, to the military academy and so forth, Yonin Gakkou. Or when they are in the fourth grade and fifth grade, they go into Shikan Gakkou, the army officers' school, or going to the Kaidohei Gakkou, the navy (officers) school and so forth. Those who excelled in the classes, there were quite of few of them, went to those schools. Because they thought that if we go into the army, no use being drafted into the army, might as well get a head start. And so all the top -- not all, but quite a few of them went there. And all these, after the war, applied for the National Higher School and so forth. And so the government sent a, GHQ set a cap there. Only ten percent of the student body are allowed to admitted into each separate schools. 'Cause they didn't want to have that kind of guy congregated together and have another thing. It is very dangerous.

TI: You mean the ex-military?

FH: That's correct, that's right.

TI: And so ten percent was the, kind of, maximum number?

FH: That's right, that's right. And so, but we had a very interesting mix right there, having those excellent students who went into the military, became the civilian school students and so forth. And quite a few of them excelled after graduation, graduating from the university and so forth. Became the real leader to restore Japan from the devastation and so forth.

TI: Well, in some ways, it sounds like a very interesting time to be a young man, because in some ways, there was so much uncertainty in terms of what would go forward. So what did you think? I mean, what were your thoughts in terms of what Japan needed to do to rebuild?

FH: Well, it was democracy. Democracy. And you know, there's a great story about that, Bob Watanabe's wife Ruth. Ruth told at one of the JACL meetings, Emperor meets with MacArthur, and MacArthur says that, "The first thing you have to do is you have to do is you have to democratize Japan. And to do that, you have to have election. Through the election process, you have to become Japan, democratized." And so Emperor says, "What? What? You were always bombing us, we couldn't sleep, we didn't even have the time to 'erect,' so how can we have 'erection'?" [Laughs] And so MacArthur says, "Well, you have to be careful in pronouncing the word. It's not 'erection,' it is 'election.' Because in Japan -- sorry for the sidetrack -- but Japanese language, there's no difference between the "L" sound and the "R" sound. Ra, ri, ru, re, ro. The "L" and "R" makes no difference. But that's what Ruth Watanabe at the JACL meeting, when there was about three hundred people or something, and there was a big laughter.

TI: [Laughs] I never heard that one.

MN: Never heard that one? [Laughs] Oh, is that recorded, too? That's okay, it doesn't matter. Anyway, and so the election, that was most important thing. And so democratization, that was the issue right there, yes. And so democratization went to the extreme, like release of the, those Tokudai Kyuichi and so forth, you know, the communist big head and so forth, all released from the prison and so forth. And that there was activity going on within the communism documents and so forth. And the students, they were always, like even in this country, like in Berkeley and so forth, you know, there was the freedom movement and so forth, there was quite a bit going on, especially at the elite schools.

TI: But at some point, I know from the United States' perspective, there was concern about the communism in Japan during the occupation, and they had a strong shift in terms of trying to really quash, sort of, the communist movement. Do you remember that? Do you remember a change in, sort of, during the occupation, the Americans coming down harder against communism?

FH: Well, no, we do not. We were not. But we heard about an incident when somebody was, there was, in Kyushu, a person who wanted to assassin the Emperor and so forth, things like that. And, of course... [makes sound effect]. We heard things like that, yes. And so it seemed like there was some activity like that we made before the end of the war. But you couldn't speak ill of the Emperor and so forth, yes.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.