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MN: Now, in 1931, your family visited Japan.

TI: Uh-huh.

MN: Now, why did your family make this trip?

TI: Well, my aunt wrote my father and said that my grandmother was very ill, and, "If you want to see her alive, you better come." So we went. But instead of dying, she immediately got so much better. She was so excited to see my father that she sat up for the first time in days and she began to eat. She wasn't eating much, and she was eating less and less every day. And so, and she fully recovered by the time I left Japan.

MN: How long were you there?

TI: We were there for three months.

MN: Now, what do you remember of the boat trip to Japan?

TI: Well, it was like a cruise ship in those days, and it was dry here in California, and so there were a lot of rich alcoholics on the ship because they could drink from morning to night. [Laughs] And so, well, it was a very pleasant trip because we would have Japan Day and have sukiyaki dinner on the deck. They would bring out low tables and zabuton, and we would sit on the zabuton and have sukiyaki cooked on our table. And we had a costume ball, which I was allowed to attend. And it was quite a luxurious ship, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, NYK line. And they had a gym and they had a swimming pool, and my mother and father played deck tennis, and they had a great time. And my mother played mah jong almost every day.

MN: What did your, you said there was a costume... what was it? Costume ball?

TI: Yeah.

MN: What did you wear to that?

TI: Oh, I wore my Nihongi, and my mother wore her Nihongi, yeah.

MN: Did you get seasick on that boat?

TI: My parents did, but I did not. I guess I didn't know what seasickness was. [Laughs]

MN: So was this like a first-class ticket that your --

TI: Yes, it was. And when we were coming back, Sessue Hayakawa, the actor, and Michio Ito, the modern dancer, were on board ship, too.

MN: Now, when you arrived in Japan, what was your first impression of Japan?

TI: Well, we got off at Yokohama and we went straight to Tokyo to my grandmother's house. I was only six years old, so... and I, as long as I stayed with my grandmother's house, I played with the children in the neighborhood. And my mother was so surprised that I picked up the Japanese language.

MN: So the neighborhood kids didn't tease you for coming from "Amerika"?

TI: No. I had a good time playing with those kids.

MN: And your family also visited your great aunt Toshiko that you're named after.

TI: Yeah.

MN: Can you share with us about her?

TI: Yes. She was quite a tall woman, and she was really frightening to me because she had painted her teeth black, which was considered quite modest and the thing to be doing in those days. And so I took one look at her and I just clung to my father because I was so scared of her. But I know it was quite an embarrassment for my parents that I was so scared of her. I regret it now, but as a child, I didn't know any better.

MN: I understand the blackening of teeth was for the upper class women also?

TI: Yes, right.

MN: The courts, and... your aunt came from very upper class...

TI: Well, she was a farm woman. She lived on the farm, and she was the favorite aunt because my father spent summer vacations on her farm there and had such a good time, he named me after her.

MN: Then you spent a lot of time with your Aunt Tomiko and your grandmother.

TI: Right.

MN: What memories do you have of spending time with them?

TI: Well, my grandmother was well enough then to take me shopping to a toy store. And she went and bought me a fishing set, a little celluloid fish, and a magnet on a fishing pole. And she got the dishpan and filled it with water, and we floated the fish on it and fished for the, a celluloid fish. Discs, I don't know what they called them in Japanese.

MN: Ohajiki?

TI: Oh, yeah, ohajiki, and she taught me how to put your little finger between two and you would try to bump the other one. And if you bumped the other one, you could take it. And I think she let me win every time we'd play.

MN: Did your family get a chance to travel while you were there?

TI: Yes. My mother and father went to see their old friends and various things, and then I stayed with my aunt and my grandmother during that time.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.