<Begin Segment 28>

MU: Okay. Well, we're coming close to the end, Tak. Is there any other thing that comes to mind that you want to, maybe tell us about your time as defense...

TM: Yes. While we were quartered, billeted in NYK building, so this was 1946, after I got there, and there was a dance hall in Ginza where we were able to go and dance after six o'clock. Up to six o'clock, dance was for the Japanese people, and after six it was our time. And on the way to Ginza dance hall, we saw a lot of these street girls. And a fellow like Shibuya who died, from Los Angeles, we used to tell those girls to go home. "Don't stick around here." And they used to say, "All right, it's easy for you say that, but we lost the war. We got nothing. We don't know how to make living, so we're here. We are not gonna go home." I felt so bad, young girls doing that.

MU: Real pitiful. Real pitiful.

TM: And one time there was -- I don't want to say what color the skin but -- American soldier on a jeep, not too far from where they were, those girls were, he was hitting a Japanese fellow. And so we were there and we happened to pass by. We asked, "What's going on?" And of course we were in uniform. And this soldier said, "Well, this fellow stole my..." something, so we asked the Japanese, "Did you steal something?" He said, "No, he must... I didn't steal anything. He just came around and I was talking to those girls, and he started to hit me." So we -- to make the long story short -- we kind of settled that thing, and we told that American soldier, "Don't come around and start a trouble like this, because we go by here all the time," we told him. There were a number of unfair treatment of the Japanese, and I was glad I was able to help some of the Japanese along that line.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.