<Begin Segment 20>

TI: Well, most of the Niseis would have relatives in Japan. While you were there, did you ever have an opportunity to do sightseeing or visit any of your relatives while you were in Japan?

FF: Yeah, but I was coming back to the U.S. I was into the replacement depot, and I suddenly woke up to the fact that, gosh, I had been in Japan for ten months and I hadn't seen anything in Japan. And so I knew I was on a ship to go home tomorrow, but heck, I left the replacement depot, I guess they call it AWOL. Anyway, I went down to see my relatives. And it was really pretty easy to do at that time, because the military had special trains tacked onto the railroad system and special cars. And, I just sat in one of those cars and went down to wherever I had to go. So I went down to see my relatives, and that was really a weird experience. Because I can just remember my parents talking vaguely about the city they lived in. And I can remember them telling, get off the train, then you walk to the left and there's a school. And then you walk down the road, and then there's a bridge. And then there's a, should be a barbershop right at the corner and a two or three doors down from that is this drugstore where my, that my aunt operates... and by gosh, on those vague instructions I just kinda retraced those steps and sure enough I went up to this drugstore, and my aunt was at the door and she welcomed me. Yeah, it was really quite an experience.

TI: So your aunt wasn't surprised that you were there?

FF: No... well, she must have been surprised that I showed up, but she didn't seem surprised. She knew who I was.

EG: Did she know you were in the country?

FF: No, no, I don't think so, there wouldn't have been any way she could have known.

EG: Relatives back home?

FF: Yeah, but there was no communication during the war.

TI: What was the feeling, here Japan had just been in the war with the United States, a relative comes back in an American uniform showing up in her door, I mean, what was the reaction?

FF: That was interesting, too. Because I, I thought, this town was occupied by the American forces until about two weeks before I got there, then they all pulled out and went someplace else. Okay. But they still had some of these taxi dance places and things operating, so I was gonna go out and paint the town. And everywhere I went, they knew me already. You know, my, I went to this taxi dance place and the proprietor of the place, I sat down with him and drank beer all night. 'Cause he was telling me about how he went to school with my old man and stuff. So there I was, on liberty with no place to go.

TI: So word just traveled very rapidly that you were in town, and people just knew that you were there.

FF: Yeah, the old grapevine was very active there. Yeah, but that was my... oh, my cousin. I asked my aunt about meeting my father's side of the family and she told me to just walk across this dike through the rice paddy, and she said I'd come to a temple. And she says, "Just ask, there's always a bunch of kids playing at this temple. Just ask them." And so, I asked this kid, I said, "Hey I'm looking for a Fukuhara." And he says he's a Fukuhara. And I said, "Well, I'm looking for a Mitsuko Fukuhara." And he says, "That's my mom." And so, he took me to his house and that's the first time I met my aunt. But I, I met my cousin since then, a couple of times since then. Of course, at the time he was only about ten or twelve and I was nineteen. But I've gone back there and talked to him since then. It's been kinda nice.

TI: It sounds like the reaction from, and the response from the Japanese was very positive towards you.

FF: Oh, they treated me like I was, kinda like a long lost son or something, the prodigal son returns or something. Because there was, they really treated me like one of their own.

TI: It sounds like the highlight of your time in Japan, during this...

FF: Oh yeah, it was really the highlight of my military experience, and it had to be illegal. [Laughs]

EG: How did you work that out? The illegal...

FF: I was... I just left, and when I came back they were looking for me. And they didn't give me time to unpack, they just threw my duffle bag on a truck and I went on the truck, and they drove me into the side of the boat and I was on my way home. But it was, I kinda got a laugh out of that, too, because two things happened: one, I got a ride down to the boat and everybody else had to line up and jump in these buses and stuff. And then there was this vessel with 20,000 guys or something coming home, and so everybody, their main occupation during the day was standing in the chow line. And they put me on KP all the way home, so I was next to the food all the way home. [Laughs] Yeah, it was, that was great.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.