<Begin Segment 12>

BK: Now, prior to -- I mean, while you were working, and you had your first daughter, you were still involved in the church. And I know that you had mentioned in our previous conversation that you had chaperoned a trip to Japan?

SU: Oh, that's right. I'd forgotten about that.

BK: Would you tell us more about that?

SU: We had the WWG Kengakudan group. And these girls, there were twelve of the girls who had graduated high school, but never been to Japan. So I chaperoned this group. And we still had to travel by boat, two weeks on the boat. I was seasick for a whole week, until the captain sent an officer down to where I was laying in bed, and said, "Your girls are running wild all over the boat. Please come and chaperone them." So I reluctantly had to leave my bed. And we went third class, at that time, to Japan. And third class meant the bottom of our bed was all boards, and they had a small mattress on top of that. And we traveled third class. Well, that's all we could afford.

But in preparation for this trip, it was very interesting that we got together, the girls got together at least once a week. And we had a principal at Japanese Language School, Mr. Nakagawa, and his wife taught us how to eat properly, how to take the chopsticks. You can't just, because it's laying on the thing. How to pick up the chopsticks proper way, how to drink out of a bowl of soup, and different procedures. And they also taught us quite a few things about Japan. Because as I said, this is the first visit for them. For a whole year prior to our trip. And we raised money, also the girls, in order to go to Japan. But the thing is, we were able to go to Japan on the boat, two weeks each way, so that meant four weeks, plus all the expenses of traveling up and down Japan, for only $300.

BK: Isn't that...

SU: Can you imagine? And yet there were some families who couldn't afford it, to send the girls. And to this day, I've heard from, especially from two girls who couldn't make it, they wanted to come. And they said, oh, they regretted that they couldn't come with us, because as soon as we landed in Yokohama, we started traveling all over. And we visited mainly the Baptist Mission fields from Sendai down to Nagasaki. And we traveled by bus, ferries, boats, and trains. No planes at that time. So we took, we left in February, and came back in June, for only $300.

BK: Isn't that amazing? That was in 1940?

SU: '40.

BK: 1940. Can you tell us a little bit more about the political climate? Or did you, as visitors from the United States, feel anything, or hear anything?

SU: Oh, yes. The war in China had already started. And so the girls, we taught the girls how to sing various patriotic songs. I don't think we knew what that words were, but at least we memorized it, and got the tune. And we, as soon as we landed, we were taken to naval hospitals and army hospitals. These young boys, they had come back wounded. And when we would enter the room, they would sit up. And we told them, "Oh, you don't have to sit up. Just lay down again." And they would lay down. And we would sing these patriotic songs. And at that time, Japan was celebrating their 2,600th year of reign. So they had one song called, "Ni-sen Roppyaku-nen". That's all I can remember. We sang all over.

But it was on that trip that we would meet various students. And they would ask us, "Why is it that United States is preparing for war against us?" And we were shocked, because we, I didn't think that the United States newspapers said anything about how bad Japan was, eventually we'd have to fight with them. But in Japan, they said, "No, it's the United States that's so anxious to fight with us." So we kept denying it. But on the trains and all, various students would come up to us and start talking to the girls. Of course, the girls were all young and pretty, and so the boys were anxious to talk to them.

BK: But that lists, then, the first inkling you had that maybe there was trouble?

SU: Yes.

BK: Real trouble between the United States and Japan?

SU: Yes. After visiting those soldiers, and then what I didn't realize, that we were being followed by the police. And they would interview us at the hotel and things like that.

BK: You mean the police would, the Japanese police --

SU: The Japanese police were --

BK: Would interview you, in terms of like what are you doing, or what kinds of questions do they --

SU: Oh yes. They wanted to know why we were there, what we thought of Japan, and -- the girls were very willing to talk. So we were put into the newspaper with quotes. The main thing was that they were very happy to go to the homeland of their parents. But they always said, "No, we're Americans, but we're very happy to come here." So they really opened up their hearts to us there, too. And although we were termed as gaijins, foreigners, never Japanese.

And one of the girls in the group had a cousin who was an injured army man, came in his uniform when we were visiting his parents there in Nagasaki. And the sad part of it, he was the spittin' image of this girl's brother. Just looked, just like that, each other. Well, the girl's brother died in our, in Africa. But I don't know what happened to his cousin there in Japan. So that's how we traveled up and down Japan.

BK: Right.

SU: And only two girls came back with me to Seattle. And the rest of them stayed behind, wanted to stay there for a while. And quite a few were caught in Japan.

BK: So as they stayed behind, to maybe visit with family, or whatever else, they stayed long enough so that they could not return.

SU: No. One of the girls, she was on that last boat that left Japan going through Hawaii. And then all of a sudden, the boat had turned around, and she landed back in Yokohama. And oh, she had such a hard time. 'Cause she had been living with her uncle, but they, too were running short of food. So she talks about going way into the countryside to dig up the earth, to see what kind of edible things there were. But she was able to come back after war ended.

BK: After war.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.