<Begin Segment 2>

TI: So tell me how your grandfather, his father came to Hawaii.

HM: According to my, story that my aunt told me about it, and it's a good thing that when, whenever I talk to someone I have a tendency to jot down notes and it's actually rubbish that I, working on my genealogy, I have tons of papers (and notes), but good thing I didn't throw it away. My grandfather wanted to go Calcutta, India, way back those days, and I've spoken to quite a few people, but they can't tell me at that time if people were going to Calcutta, but according to my aunt he wanted to go Calcutta. But he came Honolulu instead.

TI: Did your aunt know why he wanted to go there?

HM: No, no, no, but she knows that Grandpa, her father wanted to go Calcutta.

TI: Do you know why he wanted to leave Japan?

HM: Well, I guess everybody, everything was greener on this side. So I have a very good Okinawa friend who's, he's already gone, but his mother's, said, "Why did you come to Hawaii?" She said they were told they don't have to eat potatoes; they can eat rice. So that wasn't so with my grandfather, but it was greener pasture here for him.

TI: Okay, and then what did your grandfather do when he came to...

HM: He was a schoolteacher. And a Casanova too, I understand.

TI: And a what?

HM: Casanova.

TI: Oh, so tell me about that. How do you know he was a Casanova?

HM: This is what my aunt told me. Boy, she told me a lot of stories about, but at the time that he left Japan he had three girlfriends. My grandmother was the lucky one that came with Grandpa.

TI: So he was more of a Casanova in, in Japan?

HM: Yeah.

TI: And then he met your grandmother, and they came to Hawaii.

HM: Yeah.

TI: Okay. And then they had your father.

HM: Well, can I back up a little bit? Okay, in order to come to Hawaii he needed money, right? So what he did is, mukashi, long time ago, they used to say people owned property from mountain to the ocean, but this is a hearsay from my aunt and she said what he's done, he did, was to sell all the property and came to Hawaii. So I, she presumed that he paid all his taxes and then came here. So that's the hearsay, so I'm not sure, but if it was from my aunt, well, that's from the horse's mouth, so I think that must be true.

TI: So it sounds like he was a pretty adventuresome person, to sell everything you have, go to a different country.

HM: Right. Yeah, so he had guts, I think.

TI: Do you know anything about your grandmother and what she was like?

HM: My grandmother, well, she was very, not shy, but she was kind of aloof, my grandmother. She's never worked for sugar fields, but she was a little... because when I started working my genealogy what I've done is I got the census, and ten names above, ten names below because they're all neighbors. Now, who do I call to get information? So I pick a name that's real Japanese, old Japanese name. Bingo, on my family I found one, so this is where I found out that my grandmother was aloof. She was, they say hanagatakai, you know? I'm sure you've heard all that phrase. So that was interesting. That's how I did my genealogy, being nosy, (...) Mom, I'm getting kind of sidetracked, but didn't get along with her mother-in-law, but that's a story, where your only son cannot get along with the mother, mother-in-law, so I thought that was it, but when I heard story from, Mr. Ochikubo was telling me about my grandmother, "Ah, Mom was right." So you know what I did after I heard the story? I went to bedroom and I apologized to my mother, you know, hotokesan, I told her, "Mom, I'm sorry that I doubted you all these years," because when I thought, well, that's a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law kind of thing, but I had to apologize to her.

TI: Because you didn't believe her.

HM: I didn't believe her. I thought, well, it was mother-in-law and daughter-in-law thing, but...

TI: It's interesting, I'm, as a father, I think of my kids. Sometimes they'll believe more someone else than their parents, if you tell 'em something, so I think it's human nature.

HM: Yeah, so I'm very nosy, so the kids says, "One of these days, Mom, somebody's gonna pop you in the nose for it," so if I haven't --

TI: [Laughs] No, I think you're safe now. When you're eighty-six not too many people are gonna pop you in the nose.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.