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TI: So let's continue, so you're in Japan, you're attending...

HL: School there.

TI: School there. You first got there in 1939, and then you mentioned, but then you couldn't stay there --

HL: In December of 1940 we got a letter from the consulate in Kobe saying that our passports would no longer be valid after April of 1941, that would be '41, that if we were gonna stay in Japan or in the Far East we would have to apply for a new passport. And, it went on to say, and if you don't have urgent business in the Far East, get out. And so at that I got myself over into Kobe and I did apply for a new passport, but at the same time I booked passage on the next, next boat that had any vacancy, and that was the, I would be leaving end of April.

TI: But I'm curious, you did both. So you applied for the passport and you booked a --

HL: Yeah, in case I didn't, couldn't get out of the country, I thought, well, you never know whether I could get out before the passport was voided, and so I thought, well, may as well get it and if I could get out before my passport was void, well then that was fine. If it wasn't, then... so I was kind of nip and tuck there.

TI: I see. When you got this information at the end of 1940, early '41 to leave Japan, what was your feeling? I mean, was it kind of ominous, or what was the sense of what was going on?

HL: Well you, well, there was a lot of fighting going over in Manchuria, in China and all that, and feeling that most of us had is if you didn't have to stay there, if the consulate's telling you to get out, the wise thing to do is to get out.

TI: But even when you went there initially, Japan was fighting China.

HL: Yeah, but it was not quite as... it was more in Manchuria when we first went, and then it, then the war just expanded and expanded. See, because when I first went, my mukai no ojisan was living in China. He was, I think he had a Toyota franchise in Tentsing. And was he living in Peking then or in Tentsing, can't remember which, but then I was gonna go visit him that summer, and I thought, oh, well, I can go next summer and I didn't go, and I've always regretted that, that I, and so I always tell people if you've got a chance, do it when you can. Don't put off until next year 'cause next year may never come.

TI: Now, what was the appeal of going to China for you?

HL: Well, I wanted to see what China was like, and I thought as long as I have an uncle there, well, it would have been simple. And I've always regretted I didn't 'cause I always think if I had seen it before the war and then seen it after the war, you'll have a better idea of what's changed.

TI: Yeah. You know, during this time, 1940, 1939, 1940, early parts of '41, did you notice, politically, any tensions increasing between the, Japan and the U.S.?

HL: Oh yeah.

TI: And how did you, how did you see that?

HL: Well, in the papers, you'd get all this propaganda kind of thing, and so, of course, I was pretty young then, so it didn't, it just kind of rolled down my back, but then you couldn't help but feel the war. Like you go to, go to a train station and there would be all these women, and they had these, what do you... senninbari is what they call it. But you're supposed to get one thousand women to make a French knot on it and then you send it to your, the soldier and then he puts it around his, you know, and it's supposed to save him. When you go to, go on any train station and there would be women standing there, asking people to, and so I don't know how many I, French knots I made, but you saw more and more and more of this.

TI: Which got you a sense that the military effort was growing and growing, more people, and probably more fighting because they're more concerned about that.

HL: Yeah.

TI: You mentioned the papers started having propaganda. Did you hear, like, comments about the United States that you knew were false? I mean, people would say something about Americans or the United States and you --

HL: Oh, well sure. The family, that's to be expected.

TI: What were some of those things, the ideas that the Japanese had about the United States that you thought were false?

HL: Well, they were all rich people that, and all they wanted was to get rich off you, the basic kind of thing that... but when you're sixteen, seventeen, things like that don't make that much impact on it as it would if you were older.

TI: No, I'm, I'm amazed at how much you know about what was going on. Often times I interview people who are similar age, sort of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and they're pretty oblivious to a lot of what's going on in Japan during this time, because a lot of it had to do with language. I mean, it's really hard to, to delve into political issues because of language.

HL: Yeah. I'm sure if I hadn't gone to Japan I wouldn't, wouldn't have been nearly as aware.

TI: Okay.

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