<Begin Segment 29>

MN: So now your family moved out of your grandfather's house. What kind of job did you find?

MT: Well, by then, the Australian troop, it's the United Kingdom troop came. 'Cause that was the English troop, Hindu troops, Australians, and all that. There was about four different troops, kind of troops. We got a job with the Australians. I didn't know how to cook now, except how I used to cook for my mother, got to cook rice and things. But my dad used to cook in camp over here, so I went over there. Well, my dad can cook, but he don't speak English. I don't cook, but I can talk to my father and tell him what to do. So we're gonna apply for a job as a cook. They said, "Okay, we want you." I got hired right away. That's how I was an interpreter cook and my dad was a cook. [Laughs] So I told the sergeant, "But," I said, "food is short in Japan. My brother, I want him to be able to come to the camp and I want you to feed him breakfast, lunch and dinner." And he looked at me and said, "Okay." That's the only condition, I said, "That's the only condition. I want him to be able to eat." Then I said my mother can have the... well, you get a ration, but it's not enough to eat. But mine, my father's, my mother's ration for my mother, one person, she could eat enough rice. Other things she don't have, like fish or anything else, vegetables, she'll have to buy it. And so we said that's the kind of job we want, but that's the condition that I'll work. And they agreed to that. So my brother used to come every morning to the kitchen.

That sergeant, if it weren't for him, we would have starved in Japan, though. He made sure that I can have anything I want. Going home time, I want butter, we get bread edges. Soldiers don't eat bread edges, they don't like it. So we get the bread edges, put butter on it, get another bread edge, put jam on it, put it together, I take it home to my mother. My mother takes it apart, takes the jam out, takes the butter out, 'cause we would put a lot of it. She'd take the butter out, and then she'll eat the bread or she'll sell it. The butter and jam she sold or trade it for rice, 'cause that was the only way she can get rice. The Japanese farmers had rice, but they didn't have jam or butter or those kind of things that they want. So they bartered, and my mother used to trade with them. That's how she went. So we had a bag, they used to take home bread edges. How many of 'em? Take a whole bag and take it up and then let her sell it. That's how she lived.

MN: Now about six months before you left Japan, you worked for a sanitary engineer right, in the Australian military?

MT: Yeah.

MN: Now, when he asked you to translate documents, how did you do this?

MT: Oh. I was very smart. I can't learn to read or write too much, but my brother, it was amazing to me because he got to where he can read Japanese newspaper. So before that, when I had to get these things translated, I'd go to him and says, "I can get this, but how are we gonna do this part? These words, I don't know how to read it." If he can't look it up in the dictionary, then my mother would come over and help us. She said, "Oh, you read this way." She'll tell us in Japanese what it means. Then he would look in the dictionary, "Oh, okay, now you translate it like this." And I used to translate that document and take it to the boss. It always got translated. But otherwise, me, I wouldn't be able to do it. But anyway, this boss and I, we got along real well. We'd take trips, 'cause we were in Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Tottori, Shimane and Okayama, the five prefecture of the main island. That's where we were traveling all the time. He gets his ration, but he didn't want to eat those kind of ration so he would give it to me and we'd go out and buy Japanese food and eat at the hotels. When we go home, I used to give that to my mother, she used to sell that. That's how she made money; that's how she built her home over there, too.

MN: How long were you in Japan?

MT: From '45 until 1950.

MN: Did you ever think about just staying in Japan?

MT: Never. Because like I told you, I can't read those Japanese words. And if I stayed over there, I'm going to have to learn it. And I'm so smart, I can't remember. [Laughs] My brother, by that time, he was whizzing through those newspapers. Not me, I had to get the English one. So when I go to the office, get their paper, the one that the soldiers have and read that, get the news from that.

MN: Now, before you left Crystal City, had you renounced your U.S. citizenship?

MT: No, no. They didn't ask us those kind of things, no. I probably would have, the way I was mad. Well, in Poston, I was really angry. So at that time, if they'd have told me, yeah, I probably would have. But I didn't.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.