<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So let's go, so you leave Japan, you get a letter from your mother to return to Hawaii, you return on the last ship, exactly six years after you arrive. So talk about the trip back to Hawaii.

KT: Well, the trip back to Hawaii wasn't that bad, but most of them was, it was packed. That boat was packed. So all the people that was in Japan for traveling and all that tried to get to that boat. So there was a lot of island people on the boat, that's how we got together with all of them and we got to know most of them in there. I have the passenger book of that, I didn't know, but it's there. And have all the names and everybody. And so I was not too bad coming home. I guess we were happy.

TI: So was there anybody special on this, on this boat ride?

KT: Yeah, and then we met, I met all the principal of the island. There was one principal from Hawaii, two from Kauai, Maui I didn't see. But they talked Japanese so they all came to talk to us because three of us came back from the same school, Tsurumi. So we got to know all of them, and the rest of them are from the island, that I knew some of them, so I start talking to them, too. But mostly I was with the... that's how my husband was in that boat, too. I just happened to meet, we just talked, that's it. And that was all. [Laughs]

TI: Was there any attraction between the two of you?

KT: No, nothing. It was nothing. [Laughs] Nothing, because the Kauai principal was hanging on to me more, because we can talk Japanese, that's why. So we were more on that. And then the mainland, mainland, one guy from the mainland was interested in us, too, so we were always, always with them. The Hawaii boys was on the separate place. I just met them, I'd say, "Hi."

TI: Now, the principals, they were interested in you, why were they interested in you?

KT: Because we can talk Japanese. And they were telling us, "Slow down, slow down when you talk." We were talking in Tokyo word. Tokyo is fast. So when we talked Japanese, it goes fast. So they used to tell us, "Slow down, slow down and talk to us."

TI: So your Japanese was even better than the principals' --

KT: Yeah, we were good in Japanese already. You know, after six years, you should be. [Laughs] So we were good, and we were all in Tokyo, Tokyo words. And all Tokyo is standard, very nice words, not the slang. So we were talking that, so that's why they got more interested, because we talked a clean Japanese word.

TI: Did any of them want you to come teach at their school?

KT: No, nobody said that. But I came back and I taught at Mountain View school anyway, three months before the bombing came.

TI: And how did you get that job teaching Japanese?

KT: I don't know. They were looking for teachers, I think, and they know who came back from Japan. Some of them know, I guess. That's how I got picked, I understand. "Would you be willing to teach?" I had nothing to do, so at least I'll get some spending money, so, "Oh, okay." That's how I got into that. And that was three months only before the bomb came.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.