Densho Digital Archive - Kenji Ogawa Interview (denshovh-okenji

<Begin Segment 14>

KL: Tell us about school, going to school in Japan. What was your elementary school like?

KO: You know, I guess... you know, uniform, everything uniform in Japan. I guess to this day it's still uniform.

KL: That's what I hear.

KO: The hat, the whole uniform. I liked it.

KL: You liked school?

KO: Yeah, it was good. I don't know, when I went to Japan, I grew so fast, I was (tall), then became this way, I shrink, I stopped growing. I guess the food different, I don't know.

KL: That was like me, I was always really tall --

KO: Oh, yeah, me too.

KL: -- I grew early.

KO: Early start, you know, I was the tallest one. Everybody passed, summer vacation, everybody passed me. I didn't grow, not an inch after that. When I came back here, I just drinking the Coca-Cola. I don't like bacon, I don't like eggs. You know, Japan eat the miso shiru, rice, I like that. But I came back this way, bacon eggs, pancake, I didn't like it. Now I love it, but when I was a child, I didn't like it. I didn't hardly eat nothing, just Coca-Cola. You know, the old Coca-Cola was good.

KL: Maybe that's why you didn't grow anymore.

KO: [Laughs] Yeah, I think stopped that, you know. But I loved that Coca-Cola.

KL: What were your favorite subjects in school?

KO: In Japan or here?

KL: In Japan.

KO: Oh, I liked painting. You know, what's that soroban, you know, that Japanese, like a calculator.

KL: An abacus?

KO: Yeah, yeah. I was good. I was good at math, too.

KL: You mentioned stopping the train and shooting people with slingshots. What else did you do for fun in Japan as a kid?

KO: I did... was a frog? You know, Japan, lot of frog, so we'd catch that, put it here, in the stomach, so they can't see no more.

KL: What did you put in the stomach?

KO: The ear. [Laughs]

KL: What happened to the frog?

KO: That's it, it's gonna die. Yeah, he can't see or nothing.

KL: I kind of wish that the camera could see Alice's face during some of this, too, because it's kind of...

Off camera: He didn't tell you that when they blew into it...

KL: That's probably the most direct route, yeah. I'm kind of scared to ask what else you did for fun. Did you guys travel around Japan at all?

KO: Oh, yeah, we would travel all different states. I guess it's same like here, you don't know nobody, they all start fighting each other. Then sometimes you go onsen.

KL: What's onsen?

KO: Hot springs. You know, female, male separate. But you go underneath, you can go either way. [Laughs]

RM: Did you do that?

KO: Yeah. [Laughs] I had a good time, you know, the child life.

KL: What else do you remember from those trips around Japan?

KO: Most things are train, I liked train travel, the bento, oh, it was good.

KL: There was a picture in the album of a park in Kumamoto, I think. What was that park?

KO: That's a zoo, koi, wow, used to be this big, big old koi, we used to catch it. You can't do that, you know. [Laughs]

KL: What did you do after you caught it?

KO: I don't know. Yeah, that's a castle there, castle, all samurai, used to be big koi. About a hundred, two hundred. Nighttime, you go, nobody see us.

KL: Was that close to your house?

KO: Yes.

KL: What was your, the area around your house like? Did you have close neighbors, were there kids who could come over and play with you, or did you work all the time?

KO: Yeah.

KL: You guys could run around and play.

KO: There you go, river, used to have a, like a boat, bamboo, you know. That was a lot of fun, catch fish. Then we used to go catch unagi, you eat unagi? Eel?

KL: Yeah, that'd be nice to have fresh eel.

KO: Oh, you know, the ryokan, like a hotel, Japan, oh, they barbecue in front, the smell. (Have) you been Japan? Oh, you should.

KL: What other sites or important towns or anything should we go to, if we go? I mean, what do you remember?

KO: You should see countryside, top of the mountain. Good food, castle, [inaudible], people nice, country. You should go country, then Tokyo, Osaka. We went to Osaka, Kyoto. Kyoto is nice, temple, all the temple, beautiful temple.

KL: Your mom did not want to go back to Japan. Did her feelings ever change while you were there? Did she become okay with being in Japan, or did she always want to go back to the U.S.?

KO: She wanted to go back. But hard time, we're the last one.