<Begin Segment 4>

PW: So you, you took up, you had ikebana lessons in high school?

SK: Yes, four years. Everybody doesn't like it because, come to think about this, she was a very knowledge of ikebana, and she was a good teacher. But those days, if you make so strict, nobody will like it. I didn't like either, but my mother said, "You have to." You know, those days, we didn't, girls haven't got any job unless they go into the university and the special kind of course you take, you could get a job. Unless they go to shihangakko, means a schoolteacher course, after the jogakko you passed.

PW: Were there many students or young people from your village who went to university or the teacher's school?

SK: Not many.

PW: Not many?

SK: Even the jogakko, my public school, we had sixty-eight in our class, and after the jogakko high school, it's only four people went to high school. Because we have to pay. Everybody was so poor in those days.

PW: Now, after high school, I understand you continued some of your other studies?

SK: Yes, ikebana and chanoyu, and sewing.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2005 Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre and Densho. All Rights Reserved.