<Begin Segment 5>

AL: So in, Arthur, in your interview, you talk about going to Fukuoka, being on the train, going through Hiroshima and I don't think you ever talk about how the two of you met.

AO: No, that was never mentioned.

AL: Could you tell us or would you rather not say?

AO: Yes, I'll talk about it. My sister worked for the military government in town and she was in what they call a typing pool. And so one day --

AL: Is this your sister Grace?

AO: My sister Grace.

AL: Okay.

AO: And she mentioned that there's a nice girl working in the same office, so evidently Kimi learned to type on her own. She's always told me that right in her neighborhood was a lady that held typing lessons, and so on her spare time she would sit down and learn to type herself.

KO: My neighbor started typing school, and then before that, my family, not only my family, average people's family, good families, daughter doesn't go to work. But like a business one, this is after the war it changed, everybody worked. So anyway, my neighbors asked my parents if I can watch them one hour out of town people, so I went to help them. I don't know I got paid or not and very little but meantime I practice my own typing. I didn't have to pay.

AL: So you were working then for the occupation forces? Is that, were you working for the military with Grace?

AO: Kimi was in the same office at the military government working in the typing pool.

AL: Were you working for the U.S. government or the Japanese government?

AO: That was the U.S. military government office.

AL: Okay.

KO: Of course, those days, average people's family's daughter didn't go to work.

AL: Right, they didn't have to work.

KO: You go practice Japanese music, okoto and then flower arrangement teacher come to the house. I got tea ceremony I got tired and so my neighbor opened a typing school.

AL: So you met through Grace, your sister?

AO: Yes, that's true.

AL: So what did you think of this American with a Japanese face, American heart?

KO: Let me tell you when first time he came to my parents' house. Those days, entry doors always open, it's not locked and he's knocking on the door. [Laughs] Nowadays doors locked, everybody has door, most people have doorbell, but those days he was knocking on it.

AL: Just as an example like that, what are some of the cultural, what, the funny cultural things that happened because you come from different backgrounds like knocking on the door. Were there other examples where she was very different than the American Nisei girls?

AO: Coming back to my first visit, I knock on the door and politely, like we do here in the United States. But in a sense of the Japanese hearing a pounding on the door, and my sense to explain that, oh, there was a terrible, savage, unruly savage there banging on the doors. That was my impression that I had, and so that changed and I finally learned how open the door, and say, "Gomen kudasai," and that's more polite.

AL: What does that translate as?

AO: "Please excuse me."

KO: "I'm here," something like that. But now I think now average people have a doorbell and doors locked more bad people also.

AL: Yeah, that's true. So what did your parents think of this gaijin, foreigner?

KO: My parents?

AL: Yeah, what did they think of you with an American?

KO: No, my parents were just crazy about him.

AO: Well, at first, before we actually get married, and I understand that her father jumped on his bicycle and went to the village where my family grew up, where my father grew up. So he would go to each house and look at the names on each front of each house.

KO: Everybody is Ogami. [Laughs]

AO: Every Ogami. And my father told me as I was growing up that the family, his family was one of the twenty-four families that was started back some 200 years ago. And he always said that Taichibana Danjo, the lord in Kashi area of Fukuoka, so it dates back quite a long time. The eldest son was asked to go to Hibaru and start farming and he started with twenty-four families. They younger son, the second son went to Kuroda castle and was an aide to Lord Kuroda. That's the story that I had remembered.

AL: So what is the name of your village? Are you also Fukuoka or a different village?

AO: It's the outskirts of Fukuoka and they --

KO: Now, it was in the city now.

AO: It was called Hibaru, H-I-B-A-R-U village.

AL: How long did you date before you decided to propose?

AO: Probably about one year. And the day that I was supposed to meet her was at the trolley stop, and so the name of the trolley stop was called Nishi Koen, which is translated to West Park stop. So I waited there and then this young girl comes by and was waiting dressed in green. I remember that, dressed in green.

KO: Green suits and green shoes.

AL: You were dressed in green?

AO: No, Kimi was dressed green.

AL: Oh, okay.

AO: That's how I was able to identify her. And then one thing led to another and we got married. And incidentally, the U.S. military hospital building was only a few blocks from where her family actually owned a house.

AL: And that's where you were working, right?

AO: Yes, the U.S. military hospital. And the U.S. military hospital was originally a postal insurance building.

KO: That building I had to say, ever since I was growing up it was real still modern building, big insurance company.

AL: Yeah, you actually talked about that in your interview in 2006, about the insurance company and then moving out and then moving back in.

AO: Yes.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.