<Begin Segment 2>

BN: And you remember working on the farm as a child?

SI: Yes.

BN: Everybody did. Did pretty much everyone in the village also do farming?

SI: Oh, yes, all farmed. They helped each other.

BN: How big was the village? About how many families?

SI: That's, my village was kind of big, though. Actually... I'm sorry, I don't know. My village was kind of big. Eight village combine to the one school, so it's kind of big.

BN: Can you tell me about the school that you went to?

SI: I went to the school, the Kanegu school those days is, now called shogakkou, but those days, different... I got to think about this. [Laughs] Oh, see, long time, so I don't use the word. [Laughs]

BN: That's okay. More what do you remember about it? What kinds of things did you, what kinds of subjects did you learn?

SI: Oh, lesson it was doing all Japanese, reading, writing, speaking, and the shakaika, we have to learn the history and when come to the fifth grade, sixth grade, we're learning the sewing. And when war come, which I trying to go in another high school, which I applied and sent to my application, but we never have chance to go the test. But I never, even the test, but it come to me that, "you pass." I said, "I didn't go the test, how can it be I'm passed?" [Laughs] It was war, we don't have chance to go to there. And the school was, Japan army took over our school, so we have to study bottom of the trees. No chairs, no tables, we're sitting on the ground, we go study that.

BN: This is during the war period?

SI: Yes. I was, those days, sixth grade.

Off camera: Your school hours were long, too.

SI: Yes. Only Monday to Friday, that's long hour, Saturday was only half day.

BN: So you went six days.

SI: Yeah, long hours those days.

BN: Like from when to when?

SI: Eight o'clock start, those days four o'clock finish.

BN: Wow, that's a long day.

SI: Yes, long days. They called it hachijikan, eight hours.

BN: Now, the school was all taught in Japanese, right?

SI: Yes.

BN: Did your family speak Japanese?

SI: All Japanese or Okinawan.

BN: At home, which language did you speak?

SI: Okinawan. That's called hougen.

BN: And then at school you were taught in Japanese?

SI: Go to the, yes, Japanese.

BN: Did your parents speak Japanese well?

SI: Oh, yes, my parents can speak. But only thing, Grandma and Grandpa, they cannot speak. My grandpa and grandma was, when I was before school they passed away so I don't remember them.

BN: But your parents went to school during the time they were... it was already taught in Japanese.

SI: Yes.

BN: But they also spoke Okinawan?

SI: Yes.

BN: And you did also?

SI: Yes.

BN: What about amongst your friends and your siblings? What language did you speak?

SI: We're talking about, at school we're talking the Japanese language, but when we come home, we talk about, they call it hougen, Okinawan, they speak a different way.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.