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c AI: Well, now you had mentioned going to the Congregational church. Do you know how that came to be? Were your parents raising you as Christians, or how did that happen?

RT: Well, my father is a very strong Buddhist. I mean, he was raised as a Buddhist in Japan. My mother, on the other hand, had gone to that Congregational church when she was growing up, and she decided that we should go to that church. And I guess... now, she didn't go. I think she did go when she was younger, but she didn't go as an adult. But I think she wanted us to have the experience of being Christian, and learning the music, and the Bible as taught in the church. And so we did go when we were, I would say when we were still living together, so that must be until I was about ten, eleven, that we would... we were pretty regular church-goers at that time. For a few years, anyway.

AI: And then what about your father's Buddhism, did that influence you at all? Did he pass on to you anything of his religious values or any sense of that?

RT: I don't know that he separated the religious values from his own values. I think they're all integrated. He did have this little shrine in the house. It's a Buddhist shrine; I'm sure you're familiar with these little shrines that people keep in their houses. And he did have that in our house. And of course, you're supposed to put this little, the first scoop of rice goes up there on the shrine. And that kind of thing, we knew that we were supposed to do and we did that. But as far as the teachings of the church, we didn't really get taught that at all. He didn't insist on our following any of the beliefs of the church, except those that he had already assimilated into his own sense of values. And we didn't separate the religious from the day-to-day way that he lived.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.