<Begin Segment 17>

[Ed. note: This transcript has been edited by the narrator]

VY: Okay, so you moved back to Seattle, you raised a family. During that time, the two of you did some more traveling. I think you didn't travel that much with your kids, but can you tell me more about some of the other traveling that you did later?

YY: Oh, you know, after the children graduated from college, we felt that we could travel again. And so he took a lot of the jobs overseas. The first one we did was to the Philippines, that was for one year. It was a USAID job, so that they were (planning and designing) markets and schools and buildings (...). He traveled all around the Philippines, and once in a while I got to go.

VY: What would you do when you weren't with him?

YY: When I what?

VY: When he would travel around the Philippines, you were also in the Philippines.

YY: Uh-huh. But he would go and assess the place and then he would come back to design. But, I mean, there were always things to do. [Laughs] [Narr. note: I joined the American Women's Club. It was a great source of information. Places to visit, where to volunteer, fundraisers when my daughter visited, we worked with teenaged girls at Mother Teresa's Home for teen-aged girls. I was always looking into projects which would add a few extra dollars to Ester's weekly income. One such project: roasted pine nuts which she flavored and roasted, packed in individual bags, and sold at the Women's Club. I arrived in the Philippines two months later, and by then Tets had hired a housekeeper two times a week. She did the wash and straightened up the apartment for him.]

VY: Like what, what kinds of things would you do?

YY: You know, they need jobs, a lot of the people who live there, because they live in poverty, a lot of them. And so whatever jobs you could give them, they're just really grateful for. So looking for things for them to do, they like, they enjoy that. [Narr. note: Ester was a mother of five, one disabled, and an unemployed husband. She worked for one American couple, and her salary had to pay for their groceries and rent. I added an additional day for her to give me cooking lessons of their native dishes.]

VY: And there's some other places that you traveled to, kind of work travel, right? You went there for your husband's work, like Lebanon?

YY: Yeah, Lebanon. That was the last job that he took, and he was there for about six months. I was still working, so after I retired, then I went and joined him just before Christmas. We were able to travel to Jordan, to Petra, and a lot of interesting places there. But he went to Korea, I mean, he wanted me to go with him so that when he's finished working there he would have company. So while he was working, I was planning trips.

VY: Good teamwork.

YY: Yeah. Then he went to South America and to Colombia several times, and to Chile.

VY: Did anything interesting happen during any of those trips? Like did you ever have any trouble or have any kind of exciting adventure?

YY: What was that question?

VY: I was wondering, like, for instance, in Colombia, if anything interesting happened while you were there. Was there ever any trouble?

YY: One of the trips we took after the Colombia trip, it was through the Amazon and also to Galapagos, that was interesting. Really enjoyed that. And in Chile we went all the way down to the end, the very tip of Chile. They were, we felt very safe there. Just in the cities you have to be more careful.

VY: More in the city?

YY: Because they're always looking to... I was walking down the street and all of a sudden, I had pierced ears then, they're trying to take that off of me.

VY: Wow.

YY: And I said... and so then everybody looked and then he ran off, but he wasn't able to get it because it was pierced. Or I would tell my husband, I said, "That man across there is looking at us," I said, "just be careful." And he went like this to feel where his wallet was. And so right away... and before we left, I said, "Leave your money at home, just put a dollar in (...) your wallet." It's a good thing I did that because sure enough, he saw him go like this, and that's where he went. When we went into the store, he said he took it. It was gone.

VY: Wow, just like that. Very skilled.

YY: So, you know you have to be aware, but he was telling me I was paranoid. [Laughs]

VY: But it sounds like you were right. When you did all this traveling, how did you, did you learn different languages?

YY: What?

VY: When you did all this traveling, you went to so many different countries. Like you went to almost everywhere. Did you, how did you get by? How did you communicate with people, especially since you were mostly traveling just the two of you? And it sounds like several places you lived in them for a while, so that might have been a different kind of experience.

YY: I mean, most people could understand. Maybe not really converse, but (can) make you understand what you want, or what they want to know. People who work in, like in a hotel, pretty much can communicate. A lot of the people who come running up to you and say, "Can we take picture with you?"

VY: Why do you think they wanted to take picture with you?

YY: I don't know. [Laughs] I guess because at that time it was unusual to see different people because there weren't that many people traveling.

VY: Interesting. So are there any more, like, travel adventures that you remember that are worth mentioning?

YY: What was that?

VY: I was wondering if there were any more travel adventures that you wanted to mention. Like did you ever... I think you told me you rode a camel once or something? Did you ride a camel?

YY: Oh, camel?

VY: Yeah.

YY: Yeah, oh, yeah, I forgot to bring a picture. [Laughs]

VY: Where was that?

YY: By the pyramids in Egypt.

VY: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.