<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Okay, so they're back in Seattle, you're in Milwaukee, you finish, and then where'd you go after Milwaukee?

HL: I went down to Champaign-Urbana.

TI: Okay, that's right.

HL: I went to University of Illinois.

TI: And this is a graduate degree at this point?

HL: Yeah, I went down there, I was offered an assistantship down there, and then they started an experimental preschool for mentally retarded children, and so I taught there for three, five years. And then in the, in the meantime I finished up my coursework and I got my Master's, and I was working on my Doctor's degree, and then I thought, "Why am I doing this?" [Laughs] And then while I was there, one day I was reading the Daily Illini during lunch hour and I said, oh, they're offering a Fulbright in Japan. They were just opening. And somebody says, "Why don't you apply for it?" And I said okay. Only thing they can say is no and I haven't lost anything, and so I applied and I got the Fulbright and so I went to Japan for a...

TI: And how many got the Fulbright to Japan that year?

HL: Of the students there must've been, I think there must've been about thirty of us, and then there was a lot of professors that would, went there to teach, and then there was some English teachers that got the Fulbright to teach English.

TI: Were there any other Japanese Americans in the group?

HL: Uh-huh. My roommate, Flora, she was, well, she's half Japanese. Her father was Japanese, her mother was Caucasian. And then there was this fellow from Hawaii who was in geology and volcanoes, and that was his thing. And I think they were the only ones that were Japanese Americans.

TI: Now, when I think of Fulbright these days, you get a fairly large stipend to live in a country and study.

HL: Oh, I was a million yen, million, I said that's the only time I ever earned a million yen. [Laughs]

TI: So you actually, so the stipend was pretty good for you?

HL: Yeah. You could, you could travel out of the country on that, you could live well on it, and then you also got travel expenses and you got some stipend for books and stuff. It was, it was very well...

TI: And so tell me about your experience. So this is now your second time there, what was, how had Japan changed?

HL: A lot. I think the, the thing that hit me most was how Westernized Japan had gotten. And of course, by that time the occupation forces has been there for a while, but some of the most interesting experiences I had was when, like I was up in Hokkaido, and I used to travel alone 'cause I was the only one in my field and so I went to the schools I went to, and I was eating dinner at this hotel in Noboribetsu in Hokkaido, and there's an Air Force base right outside of Noboribetsu. There were these two young airmen sitting at the table next to me, and all of a sudden I realized they're talking about me. I don't think they realized I understood English, but they said, "You know, her clothes are such that they're American," but they had a term then called pom pom, you know "pom pom girl," and "pom pom girl" meant that you were a prostitute that catered to Americans. And they said, "But she's not a 'pom pom girl,' but" they said, "you know, even the 'pom pom girls' don't travel by themselves in Japan. I wonder who she is." And I almost turned around and said, "I know exactly what you're saying," but I thought that would embarrass them too much, so I pretended I did not hear. [Laughs]

TI: That's funny. That's a good story.

HL: But I had quite a few experiences like that where people couldn't quite figure out who I was. My clothing wasn't Japanese. It was definitely American, yet I spoke Japanese, and if I didn't have to speak -- this is when I found out that my Japanese was fine for, like for, let's see, how should I put it? For, for my field and talking to people in my field and in business, but it was a complete dud when it came to using the Japanese that Japanese ladies spoke, 'cause they said to me, "You know, if you're speaking in a group where it's strictly professional, nobody could tell the difference that you're not, but the minute you're put into a situation where you're supposed to be a woman, you're no good. You just keep right on talking the same way." [Laughs] That was kind of interesting to me.

TI: So what are some other experiences? So what, what was your purpose as a Fulbright? What did you do?

HL: I went there to see what they did for their mentally retarded, and so I did a, went to a lot of different facilities they had, but one of the things I found out was the Japanese university system is completely different than ours. I was gonna take this course from this, with the professor, special ed, because I thought, well, I know the field, but then I would like to hear it in Japanese and get the, you know, so they said, well, it starts at nine o'clock. So I get there at nine o'clock, there's nobody there. It's just the janitor and me, so I said to the janitor, where's... oh, she says, they don't start class until nine-thirty and probably the professor won't come until almost ten o'clock. But people just kind of wandered in. He came in and he lectured and in the process people wandered out, and later on I said to them, "Why do you do that? What's the point?" They said in Japan getting into the university is the important thing. Once you get there you're not gonna flunk out.

TI: So, so in other words they're learning the...

HL: They said, "This is the easiest part of our life, as far as being in school goes, because until now we have to study and study and compete and compete to get into the best universities, the best colleges and all that." But once you get there you're not gonna, you're not gonna flunk out, so you can take it easy.

TI: That's interesting. I would not have guessed that about the Japanese. I always think of the Japanese as being efficient at every stage, and even though it might be hard to get into university they would still try to utilize that time to take it to the next level.

HL: No. Because by that time it's, see, if you wanted to go into foreign, like become a diplomat or a foreign anything, you went to Todai. If you wanted to be in business you went to either Meiji or, or what's that, starts with a K, but you picked the university you were gonna go to in terms of what career because it was who you know. It's the old school tie that made the big difference. It's not what you could do. It's who you knew and what high, what college you went to. And if you wanted to go into foreign service, if you didn't come out of Todai, forget it, and so getting to the right university was an important thing and once you got there you had it made.

TI: Interesting.

HL: So the whole system is quite different. And then their, the concept of time is some, interesting too, because we, you would have, like, they'd tell me we're having a meeting or a seminar on such and such a time. The first few times I would get there on time. You get places on time. And the only person that would be there would be, like I said, the janitor, and he'd always say, oh, they don't come until such and such a time. [Laughs] But everybody's very relaxed about the whole thing.

TI: But that, again, isn't typical of the Japanese. I mean, when I travel in Japan people are always on time.

HL: But see, that's something that's, that's postwar, I think, and something that they've learned from the Americans. Before that it was very laid back. And then if you, like if I wanted to visit a class, first thing I'd have to do is I'd go there and then they'd always take you to the reception room. You'd sit there and you'd drink tea and all that, and you'd pass the time away, and then you had to stay there for lunch and so on. Then they would want you to give a little talk to their faculty, and it wasn't until the next day that I could actually go and, and... but there was a way of doing things that was very slow and laid back, and it was not this... if I make an appointment I expect to be there and I expect to be able to do it. No way. It wasn't that way at all when I was there.

TI: It's almost like they were checking you out or there's a protocol, I guess.

HL: There's a protocol, there's a certain thing that you do that this is the way you do things, and so, so once I caught onto that I just went along with them, had a good time doing it.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.