<Begin Segment 4>

MU: Did you go to school in...

MM: And then, a couple of months before we were to leave, my mother said, well, she's sorry I couldn't attend Josen, so, "Would you like to learn Japanese typing?" I said, "By all means, by all means." So, I had to double up on the course, in other words, go longer hours in order to complete the course in time, to complete the studies there. But it was difficult for me, because I was in competition with the people from Japan and everything was in Japanese. So when it got to the examination I almost had to memorize it. But from what my friend in Hokkaido told me -- I was already on the high seas coming back when the so-called graduation took place -- she said, "Gee, you finished tops in the class." I said, that's pretty good for a Nisei. [Laughs]

MU: Oh, you left Japan before graduation ceremony?

MM: That's right. That's right.

MU: And you heard about it on the ship coming back?

MM: No, she wrote to me after I came back to San Francisco.

MU: Okay.

MM: She (wrote) to me to tell me how well I had done. So I was real proud for a Nisei, don't you think?

MU: Of course, yes. For a Japanese typing class, and top of the class, wonderful.

MM: But I tell you -- you're not familiar -- well, of course, now they have the computer but during those days, there were, it was, the katsuji was on a ban, about 3,125 katsuji. So, you had to know exactly where these words were located. In order to graduate, you had to type thirty characters a minute. So you almost had to memorize what you were gonna type. But I managed somehow. How about that? [Laughs]

MU: Oh, that's wonderful. Now I take it that you were able to do that much, so you must've been able to read and write Japanese quite well, then.

MM: Right, you had to. So, a lot of people think that I was educated in Japan, I was not. I went to Kinmon Gakko, Golden Gate Institute in San Francisco and I was in competition with the daughter of Shokin Ginko no shitencho. I think it was Shokin Ginko, so I really had to...

MU: Yokohama Species Bank, or was it Bank of Tokyo?

MM: I don't know whether -- there was no Bank of Tokyo then. It was Sumitomo or Shokin Ginko at that time. So, she was the daughter. She was a little older than I was, but I was in competition with her, so I really had to study. So we went beyond high school, you might say.

MU: Okay, I was gonna ask you that, okay.

MM: Yeah, but I've forgotten a lot of my Japanese. But I still do correspond with people in Japan mainly because Tak was with the Mitsubishi International Corporation and the wives still write to me, and of course I have to respond in Japanese.

MU: Oh, that's wonderful.

MM: So, that's good practice for me. I've forgotten some of the characters but I use the dictionary.

MU: Wonderful.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.