Densho Digital Archive - Kenji Ogawa Interview (denshovh-okenji

<Begin Segment 4>

KL: What kind of things did she talk about doing for fun when she was growing up?

KO: Oh, you know, going school bare feet, no shoes. [Laughs] Type you go Hawaiian. She said, boy, those days, backyard, banana, papaya, they were growing, so she said it was fun.

KL: So much of Hawaii's population especially then had Japanese ancestry.

KO: Yeah, those days.

KL: Were most of her family's friends and her friends from Japan are Japanese American?

KO: Yeah, Japanese American.

KL: What did she tell you about her school in Hawaii?

KO: Well, I guess she said, "I was a good student in Hilo." She says she was a tomboy, yeah, she was a tomboy. She's not afraid of nothing.

KL: Did she play in the ocean or on the beach very much?

KO: Yeah, the ocean. Always bare feet, no shoes. You know, Hawaiians don't have shoes, either.

KL: You don't need to, I wouldn't think.

KO: So even when went to Japan, she was always a tomboy.

KL: Do you know why your grandparents moved from Japan to Hilo?

KO: Same like you have money, you can go back to Japan. The war started before, I guess, and they went back to Japan.

KL: Oh, they went back to Japan, too, your grandparents? Did your mother go with them at that time?

KO: Yes.

KL: Did the whole family go?

KO: Yeah, everybody went back to Japan.

KL: How old was your mother at that time?

KO: I guess pretty young, about ten? Yeah.

KL: She was older than ten? Okay, where were they from in Japan?

KO: They're from same thing, Tamana, Kumamoto.

KL: I forgot to defer to you about questions about child in the U.S.

RM: No, that's great. Would you mind spelling her name?

KO: Kumamoto?

KL: Tamana.

KO: Tamana?

RM: T, with a T, okay. Great, thank you.

KL: We saw some pictures, too, I think of your mother's family's house in Tamana. Would you describe that house? What did it look like?

KO: You know, like an old samurai, what's the roofs, more like pampas grass, you know, the old thatches?

KL: Like a grass and thatched roof?

KO: Yeah, yeah.

KL: Oh, wow. Did they have to replace that, the grass?

KO: Yes.

KL: How often did they do that?

KO: I guess every five years, I think.

KL: So a thatched roof, and what else?

KO: Oh, they used to have an animal, not a deer... what is it? Milk coming?

KL: A cow?

KO: Not a cow.

KL: Goat.

KO: Goat, goat. I used to play, I was a young kid, boy, they attack me. [Laughs] I'd fly.

KL: How many goats when you were a kid did they have?

KO: They have three. Wow, I'll never forget it, I'm flying, they tackle me, I remember.

KL: Do they do that to your mom when she was younger?

KO: Yeah, she used to fight like guys, she's there. "I was a tomboy. Lot of guys scared of me." That's what she said, I don't know.

KL: Did the goats scare her as a kid?

KO: She said she's not scared, but I was scared. I would fly. Oh, my god. But you know what happened? They have only boy, what happened was... you know Japan, they boil hot water to take your bath, so they were boiling, and they had two boys, oldest one, and something happened, he flipped, he went in the hot water, boil, and she said one day he was screaming, he passed away. He was about, I think, two. Yeah, burned to death. And then he was so good, a dog, always go to, this dog to a cemetery, stone, top of the stone, every day he said stay whole day. Yeah, his mom's brother's stone, he was there.

KL: How sad. And that was in Japan?

KO: Yeah, Japan.

KL: Wow.

KO: Yeah, they had two brother.

KL: What was the inside of her house like?

KO: Like a samurai house, old, traditional.

KL: I've never been in a samurai house.

KO: It's not a grass, what's that paper... shoji, we call it shoji, lot of room, tatami, you know that tatami? I like to sleep tatami, you know, I'm used to that, sleeping on.

KL: How many rooms were in the house?

KO: Five. And the top floor, lot of kame, how do you say that, kame? You know, that old floor tub, you know, deep one?

KL: Oh, the tub.

KO: I hate it.

KL: The tub?

KO: Yeah, it's so hot. You know, Japanese people love those hot water.

KL: Like ofuro?

KO: Boil, you know, the burn the bottom, make it hot. I hated it; I don't like it. To this day I can't stand the hot water. [Laughs]

KL: You're kind of unusual that way, huh?

KO: No, I don't like it. I never liked hot water. Every day I take a cold shower, every morning. I don't like hot water. Five minutes, I'm gone. You know, a lot of Japanese, they love it. Sweating, no, no, not me.

KL: What was your mother's family's work? Were they from the samurai class?

KO: No, I don't know way, history. But Grandpa was a governor. I had a good life in Japan, that's why I don't want to come back.

KL: Was he a governor even before World War II, or was that later?

KO: No, he was Hawaii, came.

KL: So he became governor later in life after he came back.

KO: Yeah, later in life.

KL: Alice, are there things I should ask about, or other things that Kenji should talk about from his parents' childhood from before they married?

Off camera: I don't know that much about the parents when he was growing up. It's what he told me, he was a brat, and he'd get away with a lot of things because of his grandfather.

KO: Yeah, same, my life. I was a bad boy, you know, Japan, get away everything.

KL: But you were close to your grandfather?

KO: Yeah.

KL: We'll have to ask more about that later, a little bit later after he's born.