<Begin Segment 8>

JC: You say you've had so many opportunities. What are those opportunities that you've had?

SN: Opportunities that I had? Well, being able to go to Columbia University, go to New York, meeting what the eastern side of the world is like in this country. I think it is entirely different kind of people meeting, meeting people from all over the country. I think it's so important. Then my business, business took me to, took me to all over the world, and that really, that is really very, very important to see the rest of the country. When you find that ninety percent of the Americans have never travelled outside of the north continent, you get that exposure of going places and meeting people and seeing the country and see what poverty really is. It's not poverty that you see on Burnside Street. There's poverty that is so overwhelming that in this world, you see, and just know that you realize, you know that situations is what it is and listening to lots of people talking, foreign people talking, I think it's very important. I mean, when you're talking to Americans day after day, you see one side of the picture only. You never see the back side, never, and you should see the back side of the picture, see what the rest of the world is like. And I have been to many, many, many countries, seen so many, had so many experiences and so on. And then the other thing is I try to find friends who are good at discussion of different things, you see, not just talking about baseball or football. It's unfortunate, I can go on and on and on about that matter of adult who gets, finally gets out of school and decides he doesn't need any more education, need to not learn anything or read another book or listen to, listen to a discussion on OPB and so on. It's pitiful. I mean, there's so much more to learn every day. I learn something, I want to learn something every day. Reading, just reading and so on and just that knowledge is fun to get, and people don't seem to realize that. All they want to know is, "Oh, who won that basketball game?" And talk about that, but that's not intellectually stimulating at all.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.