<Begin Segment 5>

MR: So you said you went to school for three years?

YD: Uh-huh.

MR: Then what happened after that?

YD: Well, going back to the schooling that I had, it was going to Mrs. Tanaka's home to learn the history and to learn all the background of Japan, going to my sewing classes in the afternoon. And then in the evenings, after I was able to speak and understand Japanese more, I had to go to flower arrangement classes in the evenings. And then during that interval after about a year, I was told that I would be able to learn the tea ceremony, but that would be in Gifu City, and that took more than, probably about an hour by electric tram to get from where we lived over into the city, and that was every Sunday, and that was the joy of my life because I really enjoyed the tea ceremony. But before I was able to go to the classes, I had to learn how to sit properly, and you sit with your feet underneath you, and that was very hard for me because I had never done that before. But I remember that when I first started being trained to go into the tea ceremony, I would be told to go into the formal part of the house where we lived and sit there for five minutes. And then if I could sit there for five minutes, it was fine. And that went into ten minutes, to fifteen minutes, and then thirty minutes. And then if I was able to sit with my legs sitting properly and my legs would not become numb, then I was able to go to my tea ceremony classes, and I really enjoyed that. And I remember when I first started, the tea master mentioned, I went with my cousin, and my teacher told my cousin, she says, "I admire this woman, this girl coming all the way from America learning the tea ceremony," because even for the young girls in Japan, it was hard for them to sit for thirty or forty minutes. But actually, it was more than an hour because we would go there from morning and then be there at class around eight o'clock, and there would be like ten to twelve students, and each of us had to learn not only how to do the tea ceremony but how to be gracious guests. And so we would be sitting there all day, and we wouldn't get home until like six or seven o'clock in the evening. And that's when you wore your formal dress, and you wore your obi, and you dressed up properly, and I really loved that. And so for all the years that I lived in Japan even after I was married, I still did the tea ceremony. And then after I came back to America, I continued. So I have quite a few of the credentials of the tea ceremony. And I quit after about six or seven years ago because I could no longer sit with my legs folded the way it used to be.

Life was not, when I think back on living in Japan before I was married, life to me was very interesting because I was learning things all the time. But it was also hard because of the fact that I was not able to make any friends. And there was an old saying that you're like kago no naka no tori, you're like a bird in a cage. But there's a time for everything and a time to learn. And so during those formative years before I was married, you were, it was a time to learn and not to play, so I was not allowed to have any friends or to have a social life. But during those times, I've been very fortunate in having very many interesting stories. And one of the stories is that my aunt was a very accomplished woman, and she was able to be a teacher of the tea ceremony and the flower arrangement. She knew koto and the shamisen. And actually, she was the stepmother of three children, and she had been married before in Okayama prefecture, and she had married a very wealthy family who, the story goes that he had some venereal disease, and so she could not have children. And so she divorced, and this is her second marriage. And the oldest son of the Hayashi family where I went to be educated was going to the Tokyo Imperial University, and my aunt was my father's youngest sister. And unbeknownst to me, my father and my aunt had thought that if I had married the oldest son, it would strengthen her position in her life. And so I had thought that I was going to be in Japan for the three years, actually, for the two years to study, but they actually wanted me to marry the oldest son. But it didn't happen that way because we got to be very good friends, but he was more like a brother. And of course, the way I was brought up, you don't fall in love with anybody, because in Japan, there is such a thing as not... well, when you talk about arranged marriages, in the olden days, I say olden days, but in the olden days, the girls were, who were properly educated, were educated to become mothers and wives.

[Interruption]

YD: I talk about my marriage as being arranged marriage, but actually, there is a funny aspect into it in that Mrs. Tanaka was telling me about this very famous young educator who lived in Gifu City, and he was looking for a wife, but he was very particular in who he married. And so he had many chances of meeting girls. And if he was not happy about that, he would look up in the sky and act nonchalant and act not interested. And Mr. Tanaka, I forgot to mention, Mrs. Tanaka was the one who taught me the social studies and history. But Mr. Tanaka was the calligraphy teacher of the girls' high school there where I lived. And going back, I learned calligraphy every other week in the evenings at his home, and it was, it was one... I also went to school on Saturdays. And one Saturday, Mrs. Tanaka was telling me about this young educator, and he was going to meet this girl from the high school, a graduate, and they were going to meet at a restaurant in Nagoya at the Mitsukoshi Department Store, and it was what they call omiai. It's the two people getting together to meet the first time. And she said that it's going to be interesting because it was one of Mr. Tanaka's students, former students, and this Mr. Dozono who was going, who were going to meet in Nagoya. And she said, "That's the way people marry in Japan." And I said, "Well, that's a funny way of marrying, you know. You don't marry for love or whatever?" She says, "No, that's what you call an arranged marriage," and then I went home. And then Monday when I went to her class, she laughed, and I said, "How was the meeting?" And she said, "It didn't go well," because, she said that Mr. and Mrs. Tanaka and Mr. Dozono and this girl and the go-between for Mr. Dozono all went to this restaurant, and he wasn't interested, and he stuck his nose up in the air, and that was the end of that. And so I said, "Well, isn't that a funny story?" And while we were talking, the door opened, and this woman came in, and it turned out to be Mr. Dozono's go-between from Gifu City. And so Mrs. Tanaka excused me, and she said, "Well, we'll end our class today, and we'll continue tomorrow."

On Wednesday evening when I went to Mr. Tanaka's calligraphy class, my aunt told me to wear a different kimono, and so I said, "Well, why would I have to wear this kimono?" She said, "Because." And so when I went to the class, it was in an inner room from the outer room where we sat by a table and chair, and he taught me calligraphy. And someone came into the door, and Mr. Tanaka went out and talked to this person. He came back and said, "We have a guest here who wants to listen to you speak English." And he brings out this book, and he said, "Would you read some paragraphs out of this book?" And I thought, "What's going on?" And here I'm in this inner room, and he's talking to someone in the outer room, and so I thought, "Well, since this person's Japanese, I have to be very careful and speak very distinctly." And I was reading this book, and I read two paragraphs. I can't remember the book, but it was a textbook. And after I read it, Mr. Tanaka says, "Well, this is the end of the session because we have a guest here." And so I went back and this was on a Wednesday. Friday after my classes and after I've come back from my assigned class, my aunt says, "We have a distinguished guest here tonight." And this was in the evening, and it turns out to be this Mr. Dozono who I had just said, hi... well, I didn't say hi but hello and goodbye, and he's there, and he goes into the former room and talks to my uncle. And I remember my cousin and my aunt were peering through the shoji and looking at this fellow that went back. And she says, "What do you think of that man?" I said, "Well, I think he's ugly. He's old, and he's nothing that I would think of." And she said, "Well, he's interested in you." And I said, "Oh, no." And that's how the story went from Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and he asked for my hand. And to me, it's funny, but it's sad too because he was much older than I was. He was a dean of the normal school, a very prestigious job, and he had only seen me once, and he asked for my hand. And I thought, "Oh, no, I'm not even ready to get married." But that's the way it was arranged. So actually, I married a stranger. It was very difficult for me.

MR: How long from the time when he decided to marry you until the actual ceremony?

YD: It was about four months, August, September, October, well, actually, three months. And I remember I cried and told Mr. and Mrs. Tanaka, I said, "I don't want to get married to somebody that I don't know." And he said, "Well, you don't know what love is. You don't know what marriage is." He said, "You marry and then you learn how to love." And he said, "Love is not, marriage is not just loving a person. It's compassion and responsibility and integrity and all that sort of thing." I thought, "Oh, it's not for me," but that's the way it was. But it turned out to be fine. I have three wonderful children, eleven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren. And although I was born in America and I was American at heart, I think through the years that I lived in Japan, I really learned the best of the two worlds. And people actually never knew that I was Nisei because I had transferred myself into a typical Japanese lady, not a woman but a lady. And people always used to admire our family because of the fact that they say ichi hime, ni tarou which means one daughter, two children and all well-educated and fine family, and that's the way we were in Japan.

MR: Then where did you live after your marriage?

YD: We lived in Gifu City because of his work, and there were other stories that I can tell you about that aspect. But from Gifu, we, my husband was offered a job in Okayama prefecture, and it was a very, very great honor because he was going to become a principal of what they call Kenritsu fuzoku shougakkou which means that it was prefecture run. And it was active prefecturely run, not a private or a public school, and this was a cluster of schools that started from kindergarten and grade school and the high school, junior high school and high school. And he was offered a job as a principal of the primary school. And it was a great honor, and he was to be transferred there after a year of marriage, and we lived there until I came back to America.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.