<Begin Segment 7>

AL: And you talked in your interview with Richard about when you first got back to Japan and guarding your possessions and taking the train and some of those things about the... how you got around in Japan and what you did. I'm curious about your emotions like when you first saw Japan.

AO: When I first saw Japan?

AL: What went through your mind?

AO: I looked around and what I saw of people, they were on their little three-wheeled carts and I was told if anyone wants to help you to carry your luggage, refuse. And there was one man and he had in back of his three-wheeled cart bags of night soil, you know what night soil is?

AL: Yes.

AO: And knowing that it was night soil, I didn't want my suitcases on top of night soil.

AL: Can you explain what night soil is though for someone listening to the interview?

AO: Night soil is... what can I say, it is sewage, it's the... how can I explain that? Night soil is jinpun. We call it jinpun.

AL: We got the idea.

AO: But anyways, it's a sewage product, it's used on the farms, and so at that time even my father used it on his little farm on the vegetables. I don't think it's used too much on a rice paddy.

KO: But now I remember they put it in a big pot, they don't use a fresh one.

AL: Right.

KO: They let it age.

AL: Dry, yeah.

AO: So that at the edge of your rice paddy they'll have an area where they keep it and it's covered with straw. And there's quite a few times when the GIs in their jeep would go around and they'll never see, and they'll step out and step into those pots. [Laughs] So those stories we've heard about, and sometimes military vehicles would take a wrong turn because it's a pretty tight turn around, and their whole vehicle would go into those human waste --

AL: So how big were these containers?

AO: Oh, probably about five or six feet in diameter.

KO: But they had to age it. They don't use the fresh --

AL: Yes. It's probably the first time I've ever done an oral history on that. [Laughs]

<End Segment 7> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.