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DG: But, don't you think genetics evolves though, too, with your environment some?

NS: I imagine, uh-huh.

DG: But maybe over ten thousand years or so.

NS: Well, I don't know. There are certainly, certain amount of, a certain amount of adventure or something. After all, why would my father come all the way across the ocean just to make a life for himself?

DG: That's for sure.

NS: Sort of a thing that the Isseis did.

DG: It really...

NS: And then having opportunities to be in Japan and make a life for himself, and yet he chose to come back and start a life over here.

DG: Did some reading about Japan's situation in the 1890s, 1880s...

NS: Well, there's that Russo War going on and so he was drafted, but he was in Alaska at that time. So he had to go back to Japan to serve in the army and he did. But because he was -- had gone out of Japan into another country, I suppose they assumed he knew enough English to do some interpreting and that's what he did.

DG: So he did the interpreting in Japan?

NS: In -- where was the war? In Korea?

DG: China or Korea or someplace.

NS: Someplace, uh-huh. So he was more or less in the headquarters department interpreting, probably in the English because he knew some English.

DG: Because the English were occupying China at that time so they needed to negotiate with them?

NS: The Russians, in the negotiations with the Russians.

DG: Why would they...

NS: They probably used English rather than Russian because they... I don't know whether there were any Japanese who could speak or do anyth -- say anything in Russian.

DG: Oh, right.

NS: So it must have been in English because he certainly didn't know Russia. [Laughs] But he did tell my mother that he was offered a position in Japan after the war.

DG: So now we're talking about a hundred years ago, Nobu.

NS: Not quite.

DG: Not quite, but getting there.

NS: Getting there almost. About ninety...

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.