Densho Digital Archive - Aiko Tengan Tokunaga Interview (denshovh-taiko-01-0019)

<Begin Segment 19>

MN: What year did you go to Okinawa to learn dancing?

AT: '63. 'Cause, yeah, the year Kennedy was assassinated.

MN: Was it very difficult for you to adjust back to Okinawan life?

AT: I stayed with my mother's friend, who was married to a retired military person. So the house was just like an American home. So as part of that, as far as daily life, I didn't have any difficulty. But yeah, I had to commute by bus to Naha studio, and yeah, Okinawa at that time was still developing at the time, in the '60s. But it was in U.S. dollar, that's why I took that opportunity. Because it was dollar, people were getting paid, if you had about thirty-five dollars a month, or forty dollars a month pay, you were in good, had a good pay. So if I didn't take that opportunity, I would have never been able to.

MN: I know in the '60s, I think one dollar was like 365 yen?

AT: Yes.

MN: Is that the same conversion Okinawa?

AT: Yes. But we weren't, we didn't have a yen, we had a U.S. dollar. U.S. dollars. So people were, if you were making thirty, forty dollars a month salary, you were pretty good. So that's why what I had, maybe about a year, I saved less than two thousand and pay my airfare, and I was able to stay there for a month. Not month, a year. So, of course, at the end I was running out, so I had to go to my father's side grandmother. And fortunate that I, they had saved up some of my father's, like, pension money from military pension, so that was able to help me. Yeah, otherwise I would have never been able to do that. So it was just a opportunity that I had to get myself out and be free.

MN: Now, were you learning odori full time, or were you learning other art forms?

AT: Odori was full time, but then there was some time available, so I learned sanshin, which I'm not very good, and forgot most of them. And then ocha, tea ceremony. Because my sensei's neighbor was a doctor's clinic, and doctor's wife had the tea ceremony class. And my sensei was also taking some with her, took the tea ceremony.

MN: And then the tea ceremony was this omotesenke or...

AT: Urasenke.

MN: Urasenke.

AT: 'Cause I was doing urasenke when I left here, so I just continued on. I think that was far as I got. I just went to shomenkyo and never passed that. But I like tea ceremony. It's a sense of relaxation.