<Begin Segment 34>

MN: Oh, and I wanted to ask you, you had mentioned about working, shooting when the crown prince of Japan came.

AM: Yeah.

MN: When was that?

AM: [To wife] What year was that, Take?

TM: Hard to say. I've lost track.

MN: Was it in the '60s, or '50s?

AM: Yeah, I think it was in the '60s. My father was still active those days, so when he came the consul general asked my father if he could take his portrait, and my father was really shocked. And so the only way to take his portrait was go to the consul general's home. That's where the crown prince was at the time, and he was there for lunch, so while he was there for lunch the consul general told my father, "You could take the portrait before he had his lunch." So I got to, I took, I helped my father take all the equipment over there to the consul general's home and we set up all the lights, and time was very, he was very strict about the time, the consul general, so the consul general came over to tell my father, "You have three minutes to take the picture." When I heard that I said, oh my gosh, how... so we got the chair that the consul general was gonna, I mean, the crown prince was gonna sit on and set the light. So I sat on that chair before the, for my father to be able to set the light so he could place the light wherever he wanted. And then, and then when the crown prince came and sat down there, and I was looking at the crown prince and then his collars were kind of, little bit off and things, so my father was in back of the camera, busy focusing and everything, and then I thought in order to save time I can't be telling my father you got to fix this or that, so I just went ahead and fixed it myself. And I was fixing his collars and hair and things, and then my father saw me on the ground glass and then he couldn't believe what he saw, me doing that to the crown prince, so he took the black cloth off his head and then he told me to, "Come here," told me to go in back of the camera. So he tells me, "You're not supposed to touch the crown prince like that." I said, "I was trying to save you time so you won't, you only have three minutes to take the picture." He says, "Well anyway," he says, "be careful," he told me. So I went back and my father took the picture. But anyway, I was the only, of course, I was in Japan, so I knew how, how respectful people are about the imperial family, I knew that, but I thought, gee, that short time, just to fix his collar, this and that, or the hair, didn't matter that much, but my father was still with the Issei thinking, you're not supposed to touch the imperial family people like that. So I didn't blame him for what he said, but I thought back, I said, well, if you say that, I was about the only person that would touch the crown prince's hair and like that, so I kind of took it as a, well, maybe as a pride maybe. [Laughs]

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.