Densho Digital Archive - Michiko Kornhauser Interview (denshovh-kmichiko

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SG: Did you have any other activities or fun, or how did you have fun in high school?

MK: High school time, well, we had no money, and I wanted to do many things particularly when my mother said, "Your father used to ride horses. He was a good horseman." But how would you find a horse, you know? So the, in the high school, the university, there was a horseback riding club I joined because it didn't cost much. But in the high school level, my father used to do the Japanese archery. And then my mother said my father was good at it, so I thought... I wanted to do everything my father did because I liked him so much, and I wanted to be very close to him at least in spirit, so I took up archery, and then I did it. I was doing very well until one day my teacher said, "You can attend the competition, but you have to buy your own." I was borrowing his equipment up 'til then. I didn't have money, so I had to quit. And I remember I wanted to be a ballerina, but I had no costume and no tuition money, so I used to go up to the class and then look in from the windows at my, when my classmates are dancing inside, how envious I felt. I remember that. And then also I wanted to be a swimmer, but I didn't have money to buy swimming suit, and then I didn't have money to pay for the lesson. I couldn't do it. So I tried everything, just everything up to the point when it requires money, then I had to give up.

SG: And you were taking care of your siblings at this time also?

MK: Oh, yeah, all the time, yes, all the time so that, it was like motherhood, a sister, but at the same time, motherhood. And then my brothers and sister always looking up to me, and I was marching ahead of everybody and then say, "Come with me," and they all used to follow me. I used to make big rice balls, and go to the park together and create imaginary world, and we used to play together. And I think my brothers and sister were kind of scared of me all the time because I was always yelling at, and then because I made sure that they did the homework because my mother made sure because sometimes my mother... that's right. Before she married, one of the things, after she was turned down being a maid, and then she opened even a bar. But for a while, she did well, but you know, she acted differently. And then she was not a bar hostess, so she didn't do very well either. Yeah, I remember now, yeah, that's right.

SG: Did you help out at the bar also?

MK: No. We are not supposed to come near it. It's a kind of evil place my mother said. So I used to bring my brothers and sister, they all behind me, and then we used to kind of, from the corner of the house, a man is going in there. We used to look, I remember. But that didn't last. After a while, nobody came because she was too polite and then too kind of authoritative, gave everybody lectures. [Laughs] She tried everything to survive.

SG: So it sounds like you probably didn't have much time to spend time with your friends or play because you were spending a lot of time raising your siblings?

MK: Yes, indeed. And then there is no such a thing as dating in Japan at the time. I don't know now because, yet, when you are in high school, kind of hormones starts working. If you date, you get thrown out of the school. But we kind of felt, I like that man, I like that boy and all this stuff. And I remember that was so funny that I liked one man, one boy, but when he came near me, I used to get so red, and my classmates used to call me "boiled octopus." And then I don't know why I got red when he came near me, I remember. [Laughs] And then another time, I happened to turn around when he happened to looking to, looking at me, and some kind of strange feeling occurred. But we couldn't do anything about that because it's against the regulation, very strict. And then my mother made sure that I understand it, dealing with men, and it's very distracting, and it gets you nowhere. And the school showed us movies, the girls went around with boys and getting pregnant and sent away and couldn't do anything anymore. So we had kind of a miserable feeling about dating and being with a man and all that stuff, so we didn't do anything. Even at the university, we would have gotten kicked out.