<Begin Segment 7>

KI: And what's more important, I think, is when you're a child and you have an experience that is disagreeable, the question is, how does it affect you, and is it important? Now, you could say, like I told my friends after camp, I said camp was fun, no big deal. And in part, it was to, if you will, minimize the significance of the camp to my white friends, because I didn't want them to think I came from a concentration camp or something. So talking about camp as fun... I did have fun because we played around, but that wasn't the entirety of the experience. And the hidden cost of camp is more than, when you're deprived of good food or something, it really is about, in my sense, the emotional cost of such an experience. Now, I recall seeing a film of Okinawa when, at the last stages of the defeat of Japan. And there was terrible shots. But the one shot that stands in my mind is a young child of about my age, dirty, but shaking, you know, fearful. And seeing that kid struck me, and I said, "Gee, that could be me." And in a sense, in retrospect, I'm reflecting on these experiences as something that made a mark on the way I am. You're not supposed to be, in the Japanese terms, you're supposed to be tough, and forget and move on to difficult things because you can't control them. But one wonders whether or not, by being tough, you're paying an emotional price.

VY: Do you feel like you did that? Do you feel like it was kind of expected to have suppressed those feelings, to kind of not think about it or not talk about it, kind of move on?

KI: Well, the way I was raised is you're supposed to be tough. And no matter how hard the situation is, you learn to treat it as just a reality to be, if you will, forgotten, and you just get over it, you know, shikata ga nai. Which is, there are some virtues to it, but I'm thinking for myself, if you deny the fear, if you deny the emotional costs, are you, in a way, undercutting yourself? Are you being less than whole, honest, if I can put it that way? And, you know, I wasn't raised to deal with these things. But, you know, be tough and put up with it, and, in effect, put it behind you. But, you know, every once in a while, when I see something like, about camp, I get a little emotional.

VY: Is that kind of a newer thing for you in your life, or did you always feel that way? When did you start thinking more about camp and how it affected you?

KI: I would say that the emotion was somehow embedded in my psyche, if you will. And how to deal with how to think about it is a matter of maturation, of reflection, of trying to look at it. And most of us are not good at that because it's oftentimes too embarrassing to deal with it. In the Japanese terms, it sort of makes you weak.

VY: It's sort of like you held onto these things and kind of tucked them away until you were ready to process them.

KI: Yeah. Well, maybe... you know, you try to get through life. Life could be very tough, and maybe shikata ga nai is not such a bad thing at all times, because it temporarily holds back, if you will, the feelings. But I think, in the long run, given my age, to deny a part of your life and experience, seems ill-advised. I mean, you want to deal with it, you want to, if you die, you want to remember not just the good things, but to settle scores that bothered you.

VY: Do you want to talk about the pros and cons, I guess, of having these things that were instilled in you about, kind of, trying to be tough? Like you were just saying, in some ways it's good to kind of not think about things for a while, but at the same time, it might have sort of a negative, it might create negative consequences for you.

KI: Well, let me put it this way. I've been educated enough and have friends who want to deal with these things. And the way a lot of people that I know have to deal with these fundamental fears is when you have marital troubles. And then you are forced, really, to think through. And the problem for thinking things through is to be able to imagine other points of view, even to think of yourself as weak, as part of you. And so when couples have to deal with each other, they have to reflect on their own sense. At the same time, imagine the sense of the other to help reflect on how better to get an understanding of what is it you're doing that may hurt another person. And honesty about self has been very difficult. Like I've been married over forty, fifty years, and it all hasn't been nice. And my wife died four years ago, and I sometimes regret not having more time to talk to her.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.