Densho Digital Archive - Shoichi Kobara Interview (denshovh-kshoichi-01-0023)

<Begin Segment 23>

TI: So you were sent to Japan during the occupation.

SK: Yeah. I was there in December.

TI: And this was your first time to Japan.

SK: Oh, yeah.

TI: And so what, what, when you got to Japan, what was it like? What did you see?

SK: Well, I used to talk to that professor that was attached to the Tokyo police. And I says, "Hey, how come these Japanese women are hanging around with all these black people?" Well, he said, "They gotta eat," and black people were all in the, mostly in the quartermaster. They had lot of access to food and everything, so lot of Japanese women were hanging around with them to get food, he said. I says, gee, to me, I never saw that, Japanese hanging around with black people.

TI: And what did you, what did you think when you saw that?

SK: I think it was kind of disgraceful, but he was telling me, "What are you going to do when you don't have no food?" Especially like Tokyo, it's not like the country. Country they had food, but big city, they had hard time getting food.

TI: And so when you said Japanese women were there, in order to get the food, what would they have to do?

SK: I guess they were like prostitutes, I guess, most of 'em. Some of 'em, I guess.

TI: And so they would essentially do that to get food so that they could either get the food for themselves or maybe even their families.

SK: Yeah.

TI: And so that, I guess, is an indication of just the, maybe the devastation of Japan and the poverty.

SK: Yeah, poverty was terrible, I guess. Like he said, you gotta eat. He spoke real good English, 'cause I couldn't translate some of those hard Japanese, so I used to ask him, "What is this?" and he'd help me out.

TI: And when you talked with this -- he was with the Tokyo police, you said?

SK: Yeah. He was attached to Tokyo police.

TI: And when he saw Japanese women doing what you guys saw, did he ever talk about that? Did he say anything?

SK: Like we said, you gotta eat. Then he says, "You want me to introduce you to some nice Japanese girl?' I says, "No, I don't want to get involved with anybody." And there was lot of black market going on anyhow.