<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Now how was it, the last couple years you were in Japan, so this is after the war, you're a young woman, you're nineteen, twenty years old...

PF: I was twenty, twenty-one, yeah.

TI: Twenty-one. So what was life like that for you? Was it a good time?

PF: Here?

TI: No, this is in Japan right before you left?

PF: Oh, yeah. Oh, I had good time. After the war, you better believe it. I was living in Osaka and Kanebo, I was working there. And then I got a job, but they couldn't give me a job because my record was good because I'd never been absent in the school, in the shop, I wasn't absent, so I got a hundred percent. But I can't read and write because we didn't learn. We were in the school, but we had to go help the farmer or help the bomb, something making, and then we didn't study. But every day I went to school, so my grade was good, so I got this job. The boss said I can't read and write. But I opened the letter, and then I have to deliver the letter to my girlfriend so they mark it. So the big shot just read the read mark. And then I served tea, that's how I got paid. But the boss, I didn't rest, so they paid me good, you know, like secretary, but I'm not a secretary. But I was helping there. And then my father sent me a letter to come home. But I was having a good time. We'd go to the station and we'd sing the song, but, yeah, and then help these older people buy the tickets and lined up. So my girlfriend buy the tickets, I help 'em, lined up, and then that was... but the streetcar man, he know that we don't have money, so he'd call us and give us a ride. So we'd go to the station, around four or five station, they'd go to the train station and we'd do that.

TI: Just helping people?

PF: Yeah, yeah, and then they'd give us money.

TI: And you said you would sing songs?

PF: Yeah, we'd sing song and everything.

TI: Why would you sing songs? What songs would you sing?

PF: Because like... you know Japanese?

TI: No, but go ahead and sing it if you want.

PF: [Sings] I sing that.

TI: And what were the words?

PF: That was like you go to the station, and the station is Umeda, and then you could walk like this with the people you like, but you can't do that. But I do like that, I sing it like that. And I like people. And we used to goof around like that, and then work time.

TI: But at the train station you would sing these songs just to make people happy and help them?

PF: Yeah, yeah, these older people. And they're nice, you know. But we don't go all the time, but weekend, sometime we'd go. And then the restaurant, too, they treat us nice. But Japan people was nice after the war. We all got friendly. And I hated to leave, but I wanted to come back.

TI: So your father finally sent a letter and he said, "Come on back."

PF: Yeah. It took me three months to do the thing.

TI: Now, was it hard to come back?

PF: No, no, I was easy because I wasn't old enough, I guess. But my brother, people, they had to have lawyer to do the paper to come back. I don't know, my father said that San Francisco, they had that, because he was the age. But like me, three months. And then my auntie want me to get married because she didn't have no children, and they adopted a person and then I'm supposed to marry him. But the war started, thank god for that. I don't have to marry him. Yeah. No, no, I don't want to marry him. But the war started, so came back. No way, I wasn't gonna marry like that. But our time right now was when I got married, they liked to introduce somebody and then you get married. And then I told my father that, no, I want to look for my own. And if nice, fine. If I don't do it, it's my fault, not your fault. So that's how I found my husband.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.