Densho Digital Archive - Haruye Murakami Hagiwara Interview (denshovh-hharuye-01-0006)

<Begin Segment 6>

TI: But tell me about language, Japanese language school. What was that like? So this was after, after school, regular school, you would go.

HH: Uh-huh. About three, I don't, I guess it was an hour, and regular school first through sixth, sixth through twelve, and you had teachers and you learned how to read, write, and you learned, what they call, sort of like social studies.

TI: So this would be like Japanese history?

HH: Yeah. Not history. What they call shinshuu, what is shinshuu?

Off-camera voice: Huh?

Off-camera voice: Shinshuu, what is that?

Off-camera voice: What is shinshuu?

Off-camera voice: Shinshuu? shinshuu is Buddhist.

HH: Oh, no. Well, what it was was to teach you culture kind of stuff.

Off-camera voice: That school we went to is dokuritsu gakkou. It's an independent school, so no connection with church.

TI: Okay, good.

Off-camera voice: But the Christian children family went to that school, dokuritsu instead of shinshuu that --

HH: Hongwanji.

Off-camera voice: And we went to that because we weren't Buddhist on the shinshuu side. We were the Zen Buddhist side.

TI: I see.

Off-camera voice: So each one that, the one that Buddhist goes to that school, but the rest of them went to dokuritsu.

TI: Okay, good. I'll ask you more about it when it's your turn. [Laughs]

TI: That's good. So how would you compare going to English school with Japanese school? How was Japanese school different?

HH: You had to immediately get down to business. Reading, writing. And I'd get, I would say culture, but... teach you some things you should ethically know.

TI: And so when you said get down to business right away, was it more strict, the Japanese?

HH: Strict, yeah. Attendance was very strict.

TI: And so if you had to compare the teacher at the Japanese language school with the English school, how would you compare the teachers?

HH: The teachers... Japanese language you had only one teacher, because you were there only for an hour or so. The English you switched by subject, and by groups.

TI: So other Japanese cultural things? So like picnics or...

HH: Oh, yeah. They, these people all came from different prefectures, so immediately they set up what they call prefectural associations, and kenjinkai they called it. And you had picnics by kenjinkai and you had meetings and you had, you know, dinners and stuff.