<Begin Segment 15>

TI: So let's go back to your life now. So you talked about the first day and having difficulties understanding Japanese, but then over time that must've changed as you stayed there?

RT: Yes. Well, that was in third semester of fifth grade and after sixth grade we'd either have to go into what they call advanced grade school, and that was eighth, seventh and eighth grade, but I, my father wanted me to go to girls' school, which was five more grades after sixth grade. That was the Japanese system then, was sixth grade and then five years to, what do you call it, kind of middle school, high school, or go to seventh and eighth grade.

TI: And what would you have to do to be, to get into girls' school? Was it like a special test?

RT: Oh, I studied like mad. On Sundays, Sunday was the only day that we didn't have to go to school. In those days Japanese schools, we went six days a week, and so on Sunday my father had gotten this schoolteacher in another village, and we went there, my brother and I, we went there every Sunday morning to learn Japanese and geography and history, especially me so that in another year, in a little over a year I could take the test to enter girls' school. So I had to study like mad. And then after I entered girls' school the war escalated and we, we hardly did any studies in the classroom. We were sent to the farms to help with the farm work because all the able bodied men were either in the army or in the defense factories.

TI: And so, when you went to girls' school, was that like being sent to, like a boarding school where you --

RT: No, no, just have to walk to girls' school.

TI: But then even, even though you're close to home they sent you away to help with the farms, the more rural farms?

RT: No, the farm, our Tsushima City, or town, was surrounded by farms.

TI: Okay, so every night you would go home still. Okay.

RT: Yeah, instead of going to the class we just walked a little bit further, or on our bicycles, and went to the farms and helped with whatever.

SF: About how many girls went to girls' school, what percentage of people went to this higher education?

RT: Maybe about thirty percent of the sixth grade graduating class. We had to take a test. There was one girls' school that was, I think, run by the, run by the ken, the state, and then there was another one that they considered a lower level that was run by the city, by the town of Tsushima. And I was fortunate enough to enter the state-run, ken-run school. But then, like I said, I hardly studied in Japan because the war escalated and we had to go to the farms. And then after that, the last year of the war, had to walk across town for an hour and, to work in a textile farm, I mean textile company.

TI: Textile factory.

RT: Factory. And we wove blankets, but they didn't have wools or anything in those days. I mean, they were short of everything, so it was some kind of synthetic material, so the, it wasn't even warm, the blankets, but it was for the military. And they had military officer, two officers monitoring the factory. Everything was run by the military.

TI: And why would they have military people? So this is like a manufacturing place, so they had --

RT: Yes, but they were manufacturing things for the army.

TI: And what was the role of the, of these military people? What, what did they do at the factory?

RT: They were just supervising, I think.

TI: Just looking over people?

RT: Uh-huh.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.