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IM: So also you mentioned that your mother was really, one of her things was that she really wanted you to be very, kind of, American. Was there any kind of ambivalence on her end about you traveling all the way to Japan to discover your roots?

KM: No, I think because it was UC sponsored and part of school, he probably did not feel that way. I mean, okay, she would always brag about her family being much better, higher class than my father's as well. They came from samurai. A lot of people say that, right? But I think they actually did, because his father was a doctor, my grandfather's father was a doctor in Shikoku. But my father's, their business, and that was kind of looked down upon, I suppose, class-wise. So she would always say very negative things about my father's side. His background, the fact that he's from Hiroshima, they were tight, they were stingy, all kinds of stuff, very negative things. But she didn't have anything totally negative about Japan per se, but when they did go to Japan after I had returned -- they went into 1971 -- she was very disgusted with Japan. Because as a Japanese American Nisei, her Japanese was old. It was rough, it was Japanese American, and she's sort of proud, my mother. So when she came back -- she also wasn't very well, she had started, her illness had already started her scleroderma illness. And so she was very exhausted, but she came to the airport four hours early because wanted to leave Japan as soon as she could when the trip was over. But she said, "I don't like Japan because they don't know the words that I do, and they looked at me like," she used the word katsudo for eigakan, old words, they didn't understand, and so she was very upset with that, so she was very turned off. But she was always very kind to people that came from Japan, and they did, people I had met came. And I wasn't even around. She was hosting people I knew, and she didn't even know them. So she was always a very good host, like Nobuko's brother came with their... they were in the market business and they wanted to know how Gelson's Market displayed their foods, so my father showed them around, and when they were in Japan, they were taken around. So they hosted these people, I never met them. So she didn't have anything against Japan, but it was full of contradictions, shall we say.

IM: And then you also mentioned that you had to make all these adjustments to fit in to Japanese society as a student. Can you talk a little bit more about what those changes were? You mentioned that you lost a lot of weight. Was that mostly because of stress or did you have, change your diet, change your hair, clothing, all this sort of stuff? This is all some stuff that I also do when I visit, so I was just curious what you had to do and how you learned that.

KM: It's funny how you pinpoint these things. Well, one is I was taking up a certain amount of space. As an American, you walk a certain way, and when you're also more curious and more obvious in looking at people. So I said, okay, can't do that, just kind of look to the side, don't turn your head and look at people like that, don't make people uncomfortable. Don't draw attention to yourself. All of that, don't stand in the way. Although I was... on the train one time I was grabbed by some guy, and he was a short guy behind me. It was like, where did that come from, you know? And the guy's just like looking this way. And again, because you don't want to draw attention to yourself, you don't yell. Whereas maybe I would have if I thought it was an American, I might have said, "Hey, what are you doing?" or whatever. But then you're embarrassed because you're... why would I be embarrassed? He should be embarrassed. But anyway, so I didn't do that. Didn't talk because I didn't want people to know I didn't understand. And then the biggest thing is I didn't eat and I lost weight, because I didn't want to order food where I didn't know how to order, so I'd have to speak or be by myself eating. And the safest place to eat for a woman was like the kissaten, where you'd have more dessert type food, so it wasn't like a meal. So I would end up eating at places like that. Isn't that kind of sad? I'd be like I'm really hungry, but I can't go there because I'd feel awkward being by myself because it's mostly men, and then I can't order the food because I can't speak. Where am I least conspicuous? Oh, the kissaten. I'll go on there and pretend that I'm just sort of here, so that's what I would do.

IM: So you didn't go out that much, like the nightlife or anything?

KM: I did only with friends. It was interesting because Japan is the first place, first time I ate Korean food, Korean food I was eating in Japan. We went out to Korean food and said, "Well, this is the best food in the world." And then we went to hear jazz, and that was the first time that really I was listening to that kind of music, like "hino teramasu," for example. And I really loved... why am I forgetting his name? He's really famous. Anyway, more like a soulful Japanese singing. So, no, we did go into the international area of Tokyo, where is that? What is that area that's more like...

IM: Like Roppongi?

KM: Roppongi.

IM: So you mostly went out with your girlfriends at ICU, basically?

KM: That were Japanese, so I felt safe. And actually, my friend did get mad at me, the one that, good friend, You could be, she was honest, she said, "You know what? It's hard for me because you don't speak enough," and she's speaking for me all the time, which was true. One thing I forgot to say is that one time... I forgot to say that I left Japan at one point because I was, it was spring, and I was so, felt so enclosed by the society, it's like the whole island, trying so hard, I said, "I have to get out of here." I was feeling like I was suffocating again. So I figured out on two hundred dollars I could take a plane to Taiwan, stay with a friend from Immaculate Heart, in Taiwan for a couple of days, take a refugee boat, it was kind of like a boat that was, I don't know, to Hong Kong, and then take another ship from Hong Kong back to Japan that'll take four days, and I can do it, so I did it. I did it by myself.

IM: So you basically started... I mean, you had this, when you started, you had this three week kind of trip, where everything was, oh, it's so great, you'll get to see all of Japan, and then toward the end, it was kind of like, oh, this is the reality of the country.

KM: But I still liked it, and I really liked the people I had met, that I was friends with, and the students that I taught. Because when I left Japan, they all came to the airport, the students that I taught. And so we had a recording that, unfortunately the recording was stolen, but the recording was on this tape of all the people that I knew, and it was like this guy had a, what they called it was, not a Datsun but it was a sports car. It was a certain Japanese name for a Blue Angel or some weird name. Anyway, he drove me to the airport, so, "I'm driving to the airport in this car." [Laughs] So it was like a really nice group of people that I had come to know and I felt really close to. So I was sad to leave Japan. But again, I had to come home.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.