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MN: And around this time, your, I guess your mother was old enough to get married in Tokyo, is that correct?

AT: No. She didn't get, she was... I would think she was probably going elementary school at that time. And I know because she went, she finished high school in Okinawa. I know she went to elementary school in Okinawa, and high school in Okinawa. So I would say it's her middle school time that she was in Tokyo. And I've never heard of any complaint from her that she was being harassed or anything. I don't know if there was any word "harass" used at that time, but being discriminated or anything like that.

MN: But I would assume her Japanese was good, and she wasn't speaking a dialect.

AT: No.

MN: So she could fit in in Tokyo.

AT: Yeah, yes.

MN: So she returned to Okinawa to go through high school. When did she marry your father?

AT: Well, and then she went to Tokyo to go to college. So she went... I don't know if she completed college, that's the fact. She might have finished, and then she went back. And then my father, my Oshiro grandfather was very good friends with... I don't know if they, they were, I think, high school, they went to the same high school, so friends with the then-governor of Okinawa. This is before, I don't know if they called it governor at that time, but somebody in politics. So he knew also my father's side's father. So that's where my, he played nakoudo, matchmaking, so that's how they met in Okinawa. And, yes, she got married. And I guess, yeah, he had finished his education, my father also went to university in Tokyo, and I guess he had just returned back home. So that's, that's when they, that's how they met.

MN: So your father also was going to a university in Tokyo. So it sounds like both, both your father's side and your mother's side were in the elite class, Tokyo?

AT: More, I guess, educated. 'Cause you know, that time, you got to match the family to where you married. So I think that's why they were kind of introduced. The person who's introducing them would look for it. Because my grandfather on Tengan side, my father's side, was very much involved in politics. So he was, that, and so I guess he was so-called like "assembly-like," you know, representing from each village into this prefectural government. So that's how they were introduced.

MN: And what was your father's name?

AT: Kenzo Tengan.

MN: And Tengan seems like an unusual last name. Is it unusual in Okinawa?

AT: No, it's not. There's a village called Tengan, and practically everybody's Tengan. [Laughs] But Tengan is very unusual from, yeah, Japanese perspective. Here, too, not too many Tengan.

MN: What is the kanji for Tengan?

AT: Ten, heaven, ten, and gan is negau, to request, or onegai. Tengan.

MN: Now, after your parents married, do you know what year they married?

AT: My mother always talks about her anniversary is Meiji Tennou's birthday, so it's April 29. She was born in 1940? '39 or '40.

MN: '40, okay, right before the war.

AT: Yes.

MN: And your parents were living in Tokyo for a while.

AT: Yeah. After, after they got married, they lived in, yes, Tokyo.

MN: And what was your father doing there?

AT: He was a physician. And he was working in Okinawa at the hospital, but he went to Tokyo. He was lung specialist, so he was in... apparently Yokohama. In Yokohama there was a lung, TB center, tuberculosis center, what do you call it? Yeah, hospital, clinic, where they only take care of... and apparently that's where he was working during that time. So that would be shortly after they got married, because my sister, older sister, was born in '41, and she was born in Tokyo.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.