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TI: I want to kind of jump to a recent event. This is May 14th, just days after a horrendous earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and as we were walking up we were chatting about the images on, on TV and things like that. Did this bring back any memories of Japan for you when you start seeing all the coverage of Japan and the earthquake and tsunami?

HL: Yeah, it brought back a lot of memories, but then the thing is it just, it was, it was just heart wrenching to see it 'cause you see all these homes just, I mean, just plastered down and cars tossed around and, oh, it was bad enough having the earthquake, but the earthquake would've been okay. They would've come through and it wouldn't have been too bad. I'm sure some of the roads would've cracked and that kind of thing, but then I think that tsunami is the thing that really did them in. And when you see that water, wall of water coming in it just, it's frightening.

TI: The remarkable thing to me is watching the, how the Japanese are dealing with this catastrophe. And you've been there a couple times, you've lived there, in comparison --

HL: But it's this whole thing, sense of, of discipline and whole sense of community, whole sense of pride. It's an ingrained kind of thing that you don't act like animals.

TI: Yeah, I noticed that. I mean, it's kind of interesting in this weird way, but there's almost, even though I'm third generation Japanese American, there's a sense of, of how they're dealing with this that just strikes me as just incredible, remarkable. And so as I watch, so there's a sense of, of pride, I guess, of Japanese ancestry.

HL: Oh yeah, Japanese have a lot of pride.

TI: Interesting. Okay, I'm done with my questions. Is there anything else that we should cover or talk about?

HL: I don't know. [Laughs] I think I've talked enough.

TI: No, this is, this is interesting. I'm glad we did this, and I'm glad that Tani was on camera to hear a lot of this in terms of the family structure, so, so thank you.

HL: You're welcome.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.