<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So tell me about your experiences in Japan. What was that like?

PJH: Oh jeez, I think I really thought that I was going back to my roots to say this is motherland, you know. I would figure it out, like this is my people, for the first time understanding that I can kind of blend. It was not the case. It was not the case. Over time, like within a few months I had to look for, for work and ended up teaching English, and I did try to get a job at, like, either a Burlett school or something, but they told me right out, "Oh, our students wouldn't accept you because you're not blonde and blue eyed. They won't think that you're speaking real English, so they would prefer to have, like, the King's English over American English and a Japanese face." So I said, oh my god, dashed again. Not accepted here either. Go in, try to find my own apartment, of course my Japanese language was very, very poor and next to nil, but trying to find apartment and the realtor would say, "Oh, are you from the country?" [Laughs] Well, that was kind of like a compliment. At least he thought I was Japanese.

TI: Well, you never know about the Japanese, what they were thinking, right? [Laughs]

PJH: "From the country?" [Laughs] So yeah, I just felt, again, ambivalent and marginalized. Could not fit in in America, could not fit in Japan, so, 'cause I did not pursue doing anything cultural there. I was teaching English and just kind of getting immersed into survival techniques, how to live on my own.

TI: And how long were you in Japan?

PJH: About a year, one year. I wanted to stay longer. I can feel my Japanese starting to kind of kick in, but my grandmother in Los Angeles had a series of strokes, and so I heard that the family had to take turns to take care of her when she got out of the hospital, and I thought to myself, oh my god, I don't want to lose this time to -- I can communicate with her, for the first time. I'll go back home. I was really thinking about staying longer and I was actually thinking about going by way of, like, Russia, Trans-Siberian Railroad and going through Europe and coming back home, but that wasn't the case. I ended up going straight to Los Angeles and thinking, "Yay, I can communicate with Grandma." Started talking Japanese and she'd just laugh at me 'cause it was "modern," modern Toyko-ben. And she was still Meiji, so she would just laugh, and still there were moments that kind of missed in communication, but it was the first time that I was communicating with my grandma.

TI: That's special.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.