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TL: I'd like to return to a few more details about your birth parents. Where they farmers or peasants in Japan as well, or is that simply what they ended up doing when the came to the States?

YB: Well in Japan, when I did go back there, they had this huge silk farm. They raised silk worms and that was their profession. I know that they were a very religious family. My grandmother was able to heal and treat people. When I went there, more people would come in, with thank you offerings to visit her little shrine, and the door was never locked or closed. And I used to think, gosh people walking in without even knocking. Mother, Grandmother says, "They never knock, the door is always open to them."

TL: What is the name of the religion that she practiced?

YB: I imagine it's a branch, branch of the Bunkyo Buddhist.

TL: And is this --

YB: Shinto Buddhist.

TL: And is this healing, art, was this practiced also by your mother?

YB: No. Grandmother seems to be the only one that had it in the tip of her fingers or in her hands.

TL: Uh-huh.

YB: And somehow she could heal people, and they were very grateful. And they would come with little offerings of vegetables or fruits, for the little shrine, and they would put in incense and leave. And at first I used to think, how can people walk in without knocking? Which is not common here, you have to knock first. But she says she never leaves her door locked, they are free to come and go.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.