Densho Digital Archive - Shiuko Sakai Interview (denshovh-sshiuko-01-0016)

<Begin Segment 16>

KL: What were your encounters like with other Japanese, with Japanese people that you met, say, when you would go on, out for the weekend or take trips?

SS: They were all very nice. We didn't encounter any hostility, because I was from the States. This is right after the war. And, you know, the U.S. was the occupying force, a bit different than now.

KL: How was it different?

SS: Well, now they have anti-U.S. people in Japan, they don't like what we're doing here. But right after the war, they have no choice. I enjoyed my stay in Japan.

KL: How long were you there?

SS: About six years. I got to travel all over.

KL: Did you work arranging those field studies?

SS: No.

KL: Did you go on them?

SS: No. But there was one time when they were invited to the palace grounds for duck hunting, we were included in that. So there were some perks there.

KL: What were the palace grounds, what was your impression of that place?

SS: Well, actually, it was just one section where the ducks were. [Laughs]

KL: So kind of watery.

SS: But I didn't participate in the duck hunting, but we were there, you know. And I went to several weddings. One was the daughter of the Japanese principal of the school, (Mr. Wade) Naganuma... did you take Japanese? Naganuma readers.

KL: Tell us about them.

SS: Huh?

KL: Tell me about them.

SS: I mean, Mr. Naganuma was the head of the school, and he had these books that he wrote for the, Japanese books for the students. For not Japanese students, but for foreign students.

KL: Were they what you used or what anybody studying used?

SS: Well, I think they used, but I was able to get some of those, and I was able to learn some Japanese characters. I don't remember them now, but I did know a thousand at one time. [Laughs]

KL: Did you teach yourself using the books?

SS: Uh-huh, and also from the teachers who helped me, yes.

KL: And was one of the weddings you went to of the Naganuma family?

SS: His daughter.

KL: That's exciting, to get to meet that family, I would think.

SS: Uh-huh, something different. And also I got, I became friends with one of the ladies who used to come to the hotel where we were staying. She was a dressmaker, but really she was a... I don't know if she actually did the dressmaking or not, but she came and took the orders and measured everybody. But here she was the daughter of a former ambassador, he was the ambassador to Turkey, and she was his daughter. But here she had to go find something to do to make her own money, I guess. She wasn't a seamstress, but she was taking orders and measuring people.

KL: So you were there until about... did you leave in 1951?

SS: '53.

KL: Okay.

SS: (...) Somewhere around there.

KL: Did you see big changes in Japan over those six years?

SS: I did see it after I went back, after coming home.

KL: Or while you were there even.

SS: No. Yeah, in Tokyo, it was cleaned up during the time that I was there. Was it six or seven years that I was there? But Hiroshima, saw it right after the war, and I went back, was it 1985, had a big difference in Hiroshima. It's a completely new town, new city. But I was lucky to be able to go around Japan.

KL: Yeah, I don't think there's very good understanding in this country of just how... I don't think there's good understanding in any case about what a war is like, and what it's like to be in a place right after or during a war.

SS: People are desperate, you know.

KL: And I've heard that in the cities it was particularly, it was particularly hard to get food, to get...

SS: I had a friend who was in Japan during the war, and they couldn't get rice, they had to go out to the country to get rice and other things to eat.

KL: You've said people were kind or polite to you as a U.S., as a person from the U.S. What do you think their mood was in Tokyo, say? Were people kind because they were scared, or because they were glad that there were finally goods coming in and rebuilding happening? How would you classify people's thinking?

SS: I don't think they were scared, yeah. I don't know. To me they were just good. They didn't look upon me as an enemy. Maybe a savior, who knows? At least the war ended and the misery's slowly abating, you know. I never thought about those things until you asked me.