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MN: So your father and yourself, you were only gonna be there a few weeks, about a month?

JD: Yes.

MN: And so when you, when it was time to return to the United States, what happened?

JD: Well, about first week of September we were, I thought was our plan to return to United States, so we started making arrangements, and my father was making contact for transportation and then started to realize there's no ship coming back. And seemed like he had a return ticket to return, but found out there's no ship to get board on, so it was frantic at first and then we're starting, we couldn't do much about it after a while. So next turned, turned to arrangement for me to go to school instead of staying home, and school would be beginning almost the second week of September, so it was taking me to the school to register, and that was the occupation at that time. We were so busy with that thought.

MN: Well, how did you feel about having to go to school in Japan?

JD: Well, of course, I was under supervision of my father, so whatever father directed me I had to follow his instruction.

MN: Now, before we get into your school years, I wanted to ask you, in Japan at that time, were people talking about a possible war with the United States?

JD: They weren't, there's no thought then. They probably hear and read about it in newspaper, the war event in Europe, but United States was not in the war so it was no concern that time. And I didn't read the paper, so I really didn't know, didn't listen to any news either. Of course, I couldn't understand the news, so totally ignorant about the situation of the war in Europe.

MN: While you were there in the beginning, how did the children treat you?

JD: Children, well, I looked different from everybody. My, my hair was longer, first, my attire was different from what they wore, I had shoe on, eventually had to abandon, and so I was slowly changing into their, their form of lifestyle. And being a farmer, we made our own zori from, footwear, from pounding the rice stalk, making it softer so you could, pliable to make zori. And I started to learn how to make rope by using the rice stalk, my grandparents taught me by watching them. And we had a cow in our house, a working cow, so we had to feed that and start to be applied to work, how to feed the cow. We had to cut the rice stalk in small pieces, and they mixed it with barley or wheat, and cooked the wheat and then mixed it with the rice, and they'd feed the cow. We had to take the cow out, clean the stall, this type of thing, so I started to get into mode of the daily work mode. And of course we had to cook rice and then also heat this, the bath, bath water, so start to learn routine of getting water out of the well, filling up the bathtub, and then cooking under the, putting fire under the kettle, and then we'd start to get into activity of gathering dry pine leaves, going to the neighboring mountain and gathering dry pine leaves to start the fire. And these would become the daily activities for me, so my lifestyle truly started to change and started to be a very interesting life, quite different from what I'd experienced. And of course, this was fall yet, weather was still comfortable. Until the winter, it would start to get pretty harsh and only thing we had for warmth was hibachi in the house and always had layer of clothes to put on to keep ourselves warm. And sitting, we had to sit on the floor. We, I couldn't sit my legs under, so I had to Indian squat, and they permitted that for me. And so then the farm work, it was assigned to cook rice at home while the people worked out in the field, since I'd return from school, I'll be free after school to do chores around the house, so one of my assignments was cooking the rice, so I learned how to start the fire under the kettle, for the rice kettle, and cook. I didn't have to cook the vegetables or food, but just make the rice, and the rice was already washed by my grandmother, so that was all prepared so all I had to do was cook it.

MN: Well, you sound like you blended in very well, but in the beginning you also said you looked different, your hair was different. Did you get picked on a lot in the beginning?

JD: Did, they had what?

MN: Did you get picked on?

JD: Yes, their peer pressure, so to speak, but as I mentioned, we had a, of course, the village, Sunabashiri, there's about, oh, a dozen or so students from various grades and the eldest, about seventh, eighth grader, was the leader of the group, so they kind of looked after everybody and became very good friends. Of course, we had neighbors, and my grandfather was unusual man, my mother's side, the second son was, Grandfather Kusakichi was the name, he had, was raised at the same house where I was living, and during the Russo-Japanese War he was inducted in service and came back with the Medal of Honor for service, so all of a sudden his family name became famous in the neighborhood, so people knew, the village people knew who Dairiki was, so from that point of view I was pretty, pretty much high, high level person. And, but of course, children are very teasing, they always taunt and always pick a fight on me, and I was picked to fight, always used to fight, but again, the senior of the group always protected us, and that became a very, comfort for all of us.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.