<Begin Segment 8>

TI: So let's talk about that a little bit more. So, so Christmas break you go to Japan, the three of you, so the trip itself took, you said two and half, three and a half weeks?

JM: Yeah, three and a half. We all, it was --

TI: A long trip. So tell me, you're, you're finally at, to Japan, where did you land in Japan?

JM: Oh, land, we reached Yokohama.

TI: And what were some of your first impressions of Japan when you first got there?

JM: Well, since we seen land and we could walk we were so happy that we were there.

TI: Was your mother and sisters...

JM: Yeah, they all were at the port to pick us up and everything.

TI: So here you had spent all your time in America, sort of Hood River, and now you were in a different country, what did you think of Japan when you saw it?

JM: Well, I thought was a nice country, but as I, the longer I stayed, I got, they kind of looked up on us all the time because we were American people with different clothes and everything on, so they, I was treated as a Korean. They said, "Oh, look at that Korean guy," and everything. And I went to school, how many years, just about six months, with long hair, American clothes and leather shoes and everything too.

TI: So let's, let's kind of walk into that a little bit more. So you're there first on vacation. I guess the question is, but then you end up staying there, what happened? Why did you stay in Japan?

JM: Because I got sick. The time that we had to come home I was in the hospital yet.

TI: And what happened, what kind of sickness?

JM: The doctor says it's just different food and water and things like that, so, but it took me close to two weeks in the hospital.

TI: Now, when you were in the hospital, so did the whole family stay in Japan, or did some people go back?

JM: No, no, they stayed at my uncle's place.

TI: And this is when, you said your mother mailed to your father telling him to come.

JM: Yeah, they sent a telegram saying, "Come home right away."

TI: And that's when he caught the ship in Portland and came.

JM: In Portland, yeah.

TI: What did your father do with the farm when he...

JM: Well, when we called our father back, this Wakamatsu family and this Filipino family and the German family, they, of course they didn't know a war's gonna break out, but they said, "Yeah, go back and see your family, but don't worry. We'll look after the farm." So that's what my dad did. He said, "Well, I'll leave everything up to you people," and then he caught the last boat. So, and then soon as the war broke out, they said from out of nowhere they come, come to the farm, take whatever they wanted to.

TI: And I'm sorry, who, who came to farm and took things?

JM: People around us. I mean, they bring, took the horses -- well, that time we had horses, no tractor at all -- and all those tools and everything. They just took it. And the Wakamatsu family too, since the war broke out they couldn't say nothing, because if they did, well, they'll get killed.

TI: So people knew that the family was in Japan, no one was at the farm, so people just came and took it.

JM: Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And then we had this one Japanese, he was a foreman for the Pacific Railroad, he was a foreman, too, and him too, he had to go back, too, because he was a Japanese.

TI: Had to go back where, to Japan?

JM: Japan, yeah.

SF: How did you find out about, how did, what happened to the farm and all that?

JM: It was leased through the Yasuis, so after that we don't know what has happened, and then we wanted to come back here, but my father and mother said, "Well, we're gettin' old," so they want to stay close to the, everybody's family.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.