Densho Digital Archive - Mary Jean Spallino Interview (denshovh-smary

<Begin Segment 6>

RM: So you had mentioned earlier that you went, you did some traveling.

MS: Yes.

RM: When did you do that?

MS: 1940. That's when we went to the Orient.

RM: And could you tell us about that trip?

MS: Yes. It was the maiden voyage of the Nitta Maru. That's the, it was the Nippon, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, something like that. We were gone for the summer, I got back to school, back to UCLA late, but that was all right. We had to go to Hawaii. And you know, it was interesting, because when we were in Hawaii, my mother wanted, had made contact with somebody at a school there. And we were in Hawaii for a few days, and my dad didn't know much about the military. But I remember him saying afterwards he didn't think we were proper. I don't know why it came up even, he didn't think we were properly protected. And this was before the war; this was before Pearl Harbor. And I don't know why my dad would say that, because he wasn't a military man. But he just had that feeling, isn't that strange?

RM: And that was his observation in Hawaii when you stopped?

MS: That was the summer of 1940. But the little ship, it was so nice. And the crew, everybody, but in those days... see, we were on the ship two weeks, it took quite a long time to go to Yokohama, is where it first docked.

RM: So you went from Los Angeles, did you leave out of San Pedro?

MS: Yeah. It was either San Pedro or... well, anyway, it was a harbor here, I can't remember. Yeah, my girlfriends came down, they'd never been on a ship. Well, I'd never been on a ship. Oh, we had a gala time before the ship pulled out, and then everybody waved, you know, the band is there and all of this. It was fun.

RM: What made your parents decide to take that trip?

MS: I don't know. My dad, I guess he had sort of a wanderlust. It was a strange time to go because the war was on in Europe. But I suppose maybe my dad thought I was getting older and would be leaving. I don't know why. But it was great, we were gone for the three months.

RM: What did you think of... you said you docked in Yokohama?

MS: Yes. And the first thing, the smell. Because they had these honeycarts, you know, where they'd pick up the human waste. They were as clean as they could be, you know, but they pick it up daily. And we weren't used to that, and that's the first thing I noticed was that smell. It permeated the whole area where we were in Yokohama.

RM: Can you describe what meeting with an entirely new culture was like?

MS: Yeah. Well, it was a wonderful experience. We never encountered any antagonism. Now, this was 1940 remember, and they had to have been planning something, the Japanese, the government. But we didn't encounter any antagonism. A couple places we saw an anti-American sign, but only two or three signs. And one time in a hotel room, I was staying in the same room as my parents in Yokohama, one time the soldiers came into our room one night. But that was the only time that we ever encountered anything scary.

RM: How long were you there?

MS: In Japan? I don't know, I have a log of... I should have gotten it out because I have this log of when we were there. I kept a daily thing, but it's among my other things, not with my Manzanar things. I don't remember exactly how long we were gone, three months. We were in Japan, then we went to China, and so we were probably in Japan a month and in China, and then we went on to the Philippines.

RM: Did you travel outside of Yokohama?

MS: Not a lot. Not a lot as I remember, because remember we were doing this trip, and through a ship line, really. No, it wasn't... there was a travel agency involved too, I don't remember all that detail. But I don't think we did a lot of traveling outside of Yokohama. I don't remember, we did more traveling in China actually, because my mother and I went up to Peking and we left my dad in Shanghai. But those are details I don't remember. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were gonna ask these things, I would have gotten out that little log that I have. You can hardly read it now, it's so old.

RM: Maybe we can look at it later. I didn't know I was gonna ask either because I didn't realize you'd been in Japan.

MS: Well, I think that was one reason, too, I was familiar with Japanese, I had no antagonism toward 'em, and then the fact that we had gone to Japan. And we really enjoyed that trip very, very much. And all the personnel on the ship were so nice. They were cute because they couldn't say the R's, and our waiter would say, "Would you like a little 'lice'?" Meaning "rice," you know, bless their hearts. It was very touching.

RM: So tell me a little bit about the rest of the trip, and we don't have to go into great detail, but it's interesting that you went to China while it was occupied by Japan.

MS: Yes. And that was really interesting, too, because China was under Japanese domination, at least that part. And the ship docked in Shanghai, my mother knew of this school in Peking. And from this teacher that I had had in the, I don't know, seventh or eighth grade, I thought, China, what a wonderful place to go. So my mother and I went to Peking. We were on a little, little English boat that carried only four passengers. It had the captain and a couple, and two or three in the crew. It was a little English boat, and because the war was on in Europe, anything English, even over in China, they had to have the blackout curtains even though there was no war going on, it was kind of cute because it was tradition. Anyway, we left my dad in Shanghai, we went up to Peking for only about a week, and that was a wonderful experience, it truly was. But we had to arrange, my dad had to arrange for everything here at home. All those arrangements were made for Peking and all of that. But the Japanese government made Mother and me undergo an examination. And, well, there was some rigmarole that should not have been, that normally would not have been. That was the only thing that they were showing us that they had control over that part of China.

RM: I'm curious if, when you were in Japan, you said that nobody reacted to you differently as being Americans.

MS: I don't remember any of that, but you know, when you're young and you're interested in things, maybe you don't notice. An older person might notice something that I didn't, and I don't think my parents felt that there was much antagonism.

RM: What about in China? Do you remember how people reacted to you as a tourist there?

MS: No, I don't. I don't remember that. But I do remember that it was wonderful going to Peking in those years. I have been back several times since, but through the decades it's changed a lot.

RM: And where did you go after you left Japan?

MS: Well, then directly to the Philippines. And, of course, let's see, that was 1940, so that was not too long before Bataan.

RM: Were there a lot of Americans in the Philippines at the time you were there?

MS: I don't know. My dad had a friend who lived in the San Fernando Valley, and they had neighbors whom we met, became friendly with. The man was Caucasian, his wife was Filipino. I can't remember their name, it doesn't matter. But her brother was the secretary to Quezon, who was the president of the Philippines. And I think that's one reason my dad wanted to go to the Philippines, because they thought, well, here's somebody who'd show us around, which he did when we got to the Philippines. He was a very nice man, and he had a beautiful wife, she was from Cuba. Her name was Jessie, and I don't even remember his last name. So through that neighbor, we had entree, and they showed us around. But we were only in Manila. I wanted to stay there because, you know, they had this beautiful home, and this Jessie, she was so pretty and she was sweet, and she was young, probably in her '30s. And I wanted to stay there, and they would have let me, but my parents wouldn't. It's a good thing, because I would have been caught, sent to that Santo Tomas.

RM: Yeah, that wouldn't have been a good time.

MS: No, no, because I know somebody who went there.