<Begin Segment 9>

MN: So now you're in high school, what kind of clubs were you involved in?

AI: I was in the judo club and other than that mostly sports whatever we get.

MN: How did you do in judo?

AI: I was okay in the class except the one guy from the Korea, he was six foot tall and I'd grab him and I couldn't budge him he was so big.

MN: So you had a Korean student in Etajima Kirikushi?

AI: No.

MN: Oh, this in Hiroshima.

AI: This is high school.

MN: In the city.

AI: Yes.

MN: Was it in the city that you were also on the volleyball team?

AI: No, that was in Etajima, grammar school.

MN: Can you share with us that story?

AI: Yeah, we used to have an island, whole island tournament and that particular one year that our class did so well we had a strong team and because of one guy is six foot tall, he's not Korean, he's Japanese. And there's a couple of guys small but real fast on moving so we had a good team and we got up to the championship game and I know were capable to win easily but funny part everybody frozen and they just cannot do anything. So I start yelling at my team. I almost got kicked out from the game because I was yelling so much, but we lost the championship.

MN: So it sounds like you were really athletic. What other sports were you involved in?

AI: Well, judo and I was doing the... what do you call that? Bar and tumbling and so forth.

MN: Gymnastics.

AI: Yeah.

MN: Was life really different living in Etajima than living in Hiroshima city?

AI: Yes.

MN: How was it different?

AI: Etajima is like an island and we're right by the ocean. If we want to go swimming we just leave the house with swimming suits and run right into the ocean water. I used to just swim the whole summer, eight hours a day stay in the ocean. Then they do in the village in Japan, they do talk a little different than people in the city, so that was the case that also in a class. I was in a middle of a class in the city but when I went to Etajima I was a top of a class with the same IQ. And things that we do, playing, everything's different from the kids in the city.

MN: Was it difficult to adjust?

AI: No, because I was there every summer vacation in Etajima so it was like another, second place home.

MN: Now you mentioned that you spent a lot of time swimming.

AI: Yes.

MN: Can you share with us what happened to your facial muscle because of that?

AI: Oh, yeah. I think one summer I was swimming and the same time I started doing spear fishing, I made my own spear and dive in and spear fishing. So I spent ocean, like I said, eight hours a day and one occasion from diving I came up and a friend said, "What happened? I said, "What happened what?" "What happened to your face?" What happened to my face? I couldn't feel anything so I can't see my face. And I went home and Mother got excited and she said, "What happened?" So she took me to doctor then found out my half of face was paralyzed, nerve was paralyzed. So the only treatment they had was heat treatment at the time. And my mother wasn't satisfied with the heat treatment so now she started taking me to the acupuncture and here. And there and this type of sickness, nerve, you cannot cure overnight, it's going to take a long time to cure. And I have this for now what fifty, sixty, seventy, over seventy years, seventy-five years and I still have partial, it's not a hundred percent cured. Mostly cured but I would say ninety-five percent but there's still five percent or so.

MN: What happened though? You were diving and why did --

AI: Well, they said it comes from exercise and getting too cold causes that.

MN: And that paralyzed your muscles?

AI: Yes, not the muscle, nerve.

MN: Now this is getting into the late 1930s, did you start to see Japanese nationalism getting stronger?

AI: Still that age I'm not really interested in politics so I cannot say. I know Japan was more in the army control by then and everybody want to be a soldier and they want to be the leader but I really had no idea of that. I didn't have an interest in the politics then.

MN: At that time though you're in Japan, but did you consider yourself Japanese or an American?

AI: It didn't matter to me then.

MN: You didn't think about it.

AI: I didn't think about it. I know I was born in the U.S. so I know I was a citizen, that's as far as I'd go at the time.

MN: If you had been drafted into the Japanese army at the time would you have gone?

AI: Either go or you're going to jail, one or the other. I wasn't of age yet.

MN: Would you have gone to jail? Or gone to the army?

AI: I wasn't even thinking about that. Not really, not yet.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.