<Begin Segment 9>

TI: You know, when you were thinking that you might stay in Japan, after six years, what do you think you would have done if you stayed in Japan?

KT: Because I had a boyfriend. [Laughs] They don't know. [Referring to family members in the room]

TI: So tell me, so how did you meet this boy?

KT: Huh?

TI: How did you meet this man?

KT: It just happened one of my friends said, "Let's go out." And she said, okay, I just followed her. And it happened she had, her friend from the same area, she came, and through him, we met. And then that boy wanted to learn English, so I had, that's how.

TI: But then finally you got this letter from your mother saying how you need to come home.

KT: Yeah, I did.

TI: Also --

KT: It was already, 1940 was, in Japan, we had to help a lot of things. And the food was getting scarce, so we had to eat the rice, brown rice, more brown, no white rice, and very simple food came out. It was very hard at that time. So my mother said, "You have to come back," so I said, "Okay." I took the last boat. That was the last boat that came out from Japan.

TI: And when you left, was there a sense that Japan was gonna go to war?

KT: Yeah. I sensed that already because of the, how they were telling us, "Go and help do this, this..." and all the, every one of them, we had to go out to help. And the food was getting scarce. That we found out. So she said, "Go," "Okay, I'm coming." That was the last boat that was coming out from Japan, Tokyo, Yokohama. And it happened to be Asama, the same boat that I came. It was the same day that I reached Japan, August 16th. August 16th, I left. So completely six years I was in Japan.

TI: Interesting.

KT: Amazing.

TI: Yeah, good.

KT: August 16th, I reached Japan, August 16th, I left Japan. So completely six years.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.