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SG: George, I think we left off with the filet mignon. I was hoping just to go back a little bit to hear more about how being an American soldier in Japan impacted you. What were your thoughts and feelings while you were there and then after you got back?

GK: Of course, the uniform made all the difference in the world. So long as you were wearing your American uniform, no matter where your work went, you were identified very quickly as an American GI, the conqueror. But it was kind of amusing because in the country towns where there aren't too many GIs walking around, if you took your hat off, you're just wearing your khakis, and a lot of Japanese men just wear khakis. And so if you had a Japanese face like I did, it would confuse them. And someone tried to tell them, "Well, this guy's an American GI," people would doubt it. They said, "Oh, you're just kidding me." But generally, we always had our little caps on. So no matter where we went, we were the conquering Americans, and we were treated with respect. It made a difference. It was interesting because when I, once, when I went out to visit my cousin in the country in Nagano-ken, my cousin asked me, "Well, do you want to take a bath, George?" And I said, "Sure." And my concept of a bath is to go someplace where there is a tub, and you fill it with water, hot water, and you take a bath. But in this case in this country community, he rolls out this barrel into a part of the house with a dirt floor, then he builds a fire under the barrel and fills it with water, and the water heats up, and that's going to be your bath. But in the meantime, the community, kids in the community find out that there's an American GI in that house. And so while I'm in the tub there, here comes a group of kids, and they're sitting around this tub while the water is getting hotter and hotter, looking at this head that's sticking out the top of the tub that looks just like their big brother. And I'm not sure what they were thinking, but this is what an American GI look like, just like their big brother. It turned out to be one of the longest baths that I took because I had to wait for those kids to leave. But I remember that well.

A lot of funny things happened because I was at my cousin's house, and of course, I went to see him, and I was introduced to his wife and maybe one sister, and we had a nice time talking, and he served dinner and so on. Well, years later, I went back, and I find that he's got two or three sisters, younger sisters. And so I asked him, "Well, I don't remember you having so many sisters." And he was saying, "Well, when you came as a GI, they were so frightened that they hid outside the house and were peeking around the corners, looking at you." So I thought, well, that's interesting. So I never did meet his younger sisters until years later when they had enough courage to come out and be introduced. There were other instances where I walked with my cousin, and we walked down the road, and we walked by a factory. And it was during the noon hour, so everybody was sitting out there in the sunshine eating their lunch. So I came into view with my cousin, the two of us down the road, and they were, at first, they were very noisy talking to each other. And all of a sudden, it became very quiet, and I could tell that everybody was staring at me. But probably the most significant thing that I understood is that, as a result of being in an internment camp and being kicked around and having our civil rights taken away from us, I thought at one time that, gosh, if anything like this happened again, I can always go to Japan. And that was not a logical train of thought because when you're in Japan, even though you're of Japanese ancestry, they'll never accept you as a Japanese. You'll always be a foreigner. And even to my relatives, I'm their foreigner cousin, you know. I was never one of them. And so the thought of ever going back there never entered my mind after that.

But it was a bad time when we were there. This was a number of months after the war ended, and they haven't recovered yet. So the railroad station in the center of Tokyo was still bombed out. It didn't have a roof on it. The trains were moving, and there were crowds in the stations, and everybody was carrying something, huge bundles on their backs, and I found out later that most of it was charcoal for, to heat and to cook with. But there was a lot of commuting going on. A lot of the trading was done on the black market. There were homeless people trying to sleep on the edges of the station. There was one instance when I met a young man about my age, a Japanese man, and he was sitting in a park by himself looking very dejected. So I asked him what was wrong. And he told me that he lived in town, and he took some valuables out to the country to trade for food, and... or, no. He took some valuables to sell, and he sold them. But while he was sleeping, someone stole his money. And so I asked him, "Well, how much did you lose?" I can't recall, but it was couple hundred yen or thereabouts or two thousand yen or something like that. And I had just happened to have that, and so I don't know whether he was telling me a lie or not, but I gave him the money, and I felt good about it even though he may have cheated me out of my last two thousand yen. But things like that were occurring every place. When you walked across Tokyo, there were acres and acres and acres of rubble, and the whole area was just flat. And every once in a while, you'd come across a piece of corrugated tin that would be moving a little bit, and someone would be sleeping under the corrugated tin. So it was not the best time to go and to be there. But for the GI, of course, we were well fed, and we had plenty of entertainment. And on one, they had dances at night at the basements of some of the billets. And I went down there once, and I can tell that this one Japanese girl was having trouble with a GI that was drunk and trying to hang all over her. And I don't know what was wrong with me, but I thought I'd be a good Samaritan. And so I cut in and, just to get her away from her drunk friend, and that's all I did. When the dance was over, I said, "Well, thank you, very much," and I left. And the next day over the loudspeaker, someone calls me, and they said, "George Katagiri, you have a visitor downstairs." And I thought, well, who knows me in Tokyo? And I went down there, and here's this girl and her mother. And I thought, oh my gosh, what am I getting into? They had handkerchiefs that they wanted to give me and little presents. And I said, "Well, thank you, very much. But you know, I'm very busy, and I have to go." Well, they kept coming back for two, three times, and I finally had to tell, "Well, I'm engaged to a girl in Minneapolis," and I don't think they took no for an answer. They kept it up until I felt very uncomfortable, and I just had to be very rude. And later on, I just wasn't there anymore, but that happened.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.