<Begin Segment 23>

TI: Now, you talked about earlier, how before the Americans came to Japan there was this fear by the Japanese about Americans, that they'd come, they'd rape and kill you.

JM: Yeah, rape...

TI: Now, after they've been here for a while, how would you describe the Japanese feelings towards Americans during the occupation?

JM: They gradually start to loosen up and they were welcoming them there, too, because if the GIs, now, if they go outside on Sunday or something, they'll have chocolate or tobacco, and things like that, so if the girls, you know, they go with the girls and go to a movie, something, they get the cigarettes and everything, so they became real friendly on both sides.

TI: So how about when you talked with, first with the Niseis, what were the Niseis' impressions of Japanese? The ones that, they'd maybe in MIS and they'd spent almost their whole lives in the United States and now they're in Japan, maybe for the first time for some of them, what do you think they thought about the Japanese?

JM: I guess they were, they were thinkin' that, because they had Japanese education, so they thought that stupid people, but we got along real good with those people, too. And any time we have some kind of a gathering or even with the officers or the mess hall, we all kind of get together and talk about how we spent in Japan and how when they were a kid, yeah, they were educated in Japan, things like that. And my best friend too, he was educated in California, but the parents too, even after the war, the parents said, "Hey, we're, Japan won the war, so we're gonna go back to Japan," and this friend of mine said, "No, Japan has lost." "No, no." So they went back to Japan and when the parents seen the GIs over there, that was the first time that the parents said, "Oh, Japan lost." It was a, California where, the camp where all those Nisei people, they were...

TI: It's either Tule Lake, Tule Lake?

JM: No, no.

TI: Manzanar?

JM: Yeah, that's, that's one place, and he came from there, too, but him and I were one of the best friends over there.

TI: And, and tell me a little bit more about the lives of the Japanese during the occupation. How hard was it in terms of just living in Japan?

JM: Well, gradually things start pickin' up so it was easy, but mostly all, at the beginning it was all black market, 'cause they'll, the black market, once they buy that they sell to people like that, so it was tough for everybody, the Japanese people. But in my case, too, I didn't even think about that 'cause I got whatever I wanted. Even the food, too, I got all American food and everything 'cause the quartermaster, 'cause they knew we were from America, if I brought home steak and thing like that, oh, my mom and dad, boy, they were happy as they could be. [Laughs] Bacon and everything.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.