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SY: But you ended up, I mean, the conscious decision to go to Japan, that was very...
BW: I felt very strongly that this was an experience I wanted to have. Part of it was existential, I think. I wanted to experience Japan. I wanted to learn the culture, learn the language, and be outside of America. So I felt that was more important than other things.
SY: Really focused on it. And what was it like?
BW: It was probably one of the best years of my life. I saved up enough money that I didn't have to worry about money, and I was very frugal when I was working at Lockheed. So I saved up enough money, and so I spent nine months essentially going to class and taking trips and trying to really experience Japan and Tokyo back in the '60s, which was quite an interesting era of Japan as it was just coming out and starting to very well in the world after the war. And experiencing Japan as a Japanese American, I remember one experience landing at Haneda Airport and I'm looking out the window, and this may seem funny, but to me it's so, I don't know, one of those moments, but I'm looking out the window and everybody on the ground running around are Japanese, of course. And I thought, look at that, this whole airport is being run by Japanese. And I thought, "Now, why is that so remarkable?" Well, I've never seen anything like that. Everything in America was run by whites. Airports, important functions, white people did that. And I thought, "Here's a country run by Japanese. They look just like me." And again, I realized how racist that I'd grown up, thinking that Japanese people couldn't do that. I'll never forget that, looking out the window and seeing these Japanese people are running this big airport. How amazing. How amazing that that should be amazing.
SY: So you actually did learn the language, then?
BW: I did. I probably learned, like maybe a thousand kanji, and I became quite conversant. But I knew I wasn't Japanese, so it helped confirm my being Japanese American. But like I say, it was great fun. Kind of interesting -- well, go ahead.
SY: Go ahead, no, no.
BW: I was gonna say, there was a group of us, about sixty Americans, all a part of the international division, so we ran around and did a lot of stuff, so some of my best friends were, like, Caucasian women, and I thought it was kind of ironic that I developed a very close relationship with a Caucasian woman in Japan, an American, whereas while I was in America I never, like, dated a white girl. So I thought, how strange life is. [Laughs]
<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.