Densho Digital Archive - Michiko Kornhauser Interview (denshovh-kmichiko

<Begin Segment 15>

SG: So I think we left off with the East-West Center, and you're talking about how you had just been accepted and deciding to go to the East-West Center.

MK: Yes. The news came when I was working in the laboratory. I had a very expensive crystal cell that's all lined up. I had just washed up them and then put them on the towel to dry them out. When the news came, I was so happy, I went, "Whoopie," and lifted the towel and all the cells smashed against the walls, and it was so expensive. At the time, my salary was something like, in American dollars, $80 a month, and each cell would cost at least $50 more, and I broke four of them. And I went to the people, the department people who gave it to me to use them and I apologized and told them the truth, and then they said that, "Congratulations, this would be our gift," and I was so grateful to them to this day. And then I went to my professor in fermentation chemistry and then told him and then, what happened and he said, "Good. No one in Japan could tame you. You are like a untamable horse." He said, "You got to go to a continent and find a man to marry." And also the other professor, when I went to see other professor, other professor said, "Find a good man while you are in America because no one can marry you in Japan because your mother will destroy the marriage because my mother, your mother loves you so much, and she has an idea about your future, all planned, and she wouldn't allow any of it." Although I had go-between, arrange the marriage and so on, I met the prospective, the bridegroom, my mother arranged it in such a way that I wouldn't marry that man. But at the same time, in the future, she could have said that, "Oh, I had did it for you. You didn't like him." That's the way my mother kind of, tried to keep me working, never marry anybody. But that's the way it was. But now we are talking about the East-West Center, yes, and then that happened. And then unfortunately, my boyfriend and I broke up because my mother was very much against him anyway. And then my mother said probably my way of thinking will change in such a way that he wouldn't recognize me anymore after I come back from the United States, so I should be free of everything, so she broke up our relationship. And that's the first time I felt that kind of, the feeling of autumn, the dry leaves passing through my heart just making kind of dry sound inside. I was really hurt. Yet I had to say goodbye to him because of at that time I was under the influence of my mother, and I would listen to my mother.

And then throughout the university time, although I promised my dean that I would never fall in love with anybody, but quite a few gentlemen wanted to marry me, so I always took him to my mother, and then said, "He wants to marry me. What do you think?" My mother always had an excuse. For example, one of the gentleman wanted to take me back to Nagasaki, said that, my mother said, "Look at his hand. You know, when he puts his hands like that, you can see through it, and all the money will go through the fingers, so you can't marry that man, you know." Or she'll say, "Well, he's from Kobe, must be untouchable person, the family background, so you can't marry him." And, "Oh, this is too handsome. He'll be a playboy." She always had excuses, and I always thought that my mother was thinking about me, so I said no to the gentlemen. But this one, so I always tried to bring the gentlemen who asked me to marry. I thought that this one is better than the next one, the last one, so my mother will agree. But every time my mother said, no. So when I went to East-West Center, I had no one waiting for me. But it turned out that somebody did for eight years, but my mother said no to him too, so it didn't work out.

So then when I went to the East-West Center, second day, although I felt very free and happy that I'm, here I am in Hawaii, of course, I was lonesome. Next morning when I woke up, I smelled something strange. I had a roommate from the Philippines, Indonesia, and America. The four of us are rooming together. And I went to the kitchen to see, what was happening, and she was cooking bacon that I had never seen before, something greasy, and I had to go to bathroom and throw up, and I couldn't take that smell, I remember that. And then when I came to this country, I had never seen western toilet. I didn't know how to use it. You know, it's different from, it's backwards from Japanese. So I got on the toilet seat and fell inside, you know. [Laughs] But then my roommate from Indonesia was very kind of careless, and she didn't close the door to the bathroom, so I was able to see what she was doing. Then I learned how to use the toilet for the first time. Things went like that. And then the East-West Center gave us sheets, two sheets, and then bed pad and pillowcases and pillow and everything, blanket and so on. I couldn't understand how to use everything because I didn't know how to make bed, never slept on it. And then bed pad, I didn't know, and then I put the sheets, in Japanese style. They cover the futon in it with the sheets, and they had the blanket on top of it and fall asleep. So bed pad, I didn't know what to do. I thought that was a blanket, so I put it on top of everything else. And then when my Indonesian roommate, two girls, the same apartment but the two bedrooms, so I roomed with Indonesian girl, and the American girl roomed with the Filipino girl. And then so when I arrived there, Indonesian girl was out. But later on, she came and looked at how I was sleeping, she laughed, you know. Then I learned how to use the bed pad. But still, I didn't know that we, in America, you sleep between the two sheets. So every week, the laundry lady will come with the new sets of, sheets and bring. But since I didn't use one, so I kept just piling it up in my closet. So pretty soon, my closet was full of sheets until roommate found out, and, "What's the matter with you?"

Then that way, I learned how to live in this country. And then also how to cook in this country the American way, and I was always looking for the Japanese restaurant. I wanted to eat miso soup, but I couldn't find anything. But if I did, it was white miso, and I'm used to Tokyo style which is red miso. And so the miso soup was too sweet to me in Hawaii, and so I was very, very, homesick. I was, the first time, I, first time I was homesick was during the war when I was evacuated. I was at the countryside. But then Hawaii, I really felt lonely and then missed my mother. And then my mother controlled my life all the time, and I had no saying what I am supposed to even wear, and my mother decided, "Today you wear this." So when I came to the East-West Center, I had to decide, and I'm always, I was always asking my roommate what to do, and roommate said, "What's the matter with you? You Japanese girl don't know what to dress." Then I slowly began to learn. And then I was introduced to a Japanese American home, principal of the Japanese language school, and then they became the host parent, host family, and they were so good to me, and I'm very grateful to them to this day because they made me feel so comfortable.

But the interesting thing with that family was that when the New Year came, shiny black car came and stopped in front of my apartment. And then Japanese American people got out of the back of the shiny car and then all dressed up formal way, and then they brought a box and had a red kimono, and then they dressed me in a red kimono. And I had no money, so I had no kimono at the time, and I couldn't bring any kimono from Japan. It's beyond me, and so I didn't have anything. Then my host family found out, so that they, then they took me to the consul general's residence. There, we all as students, I was one of thirty-six Japanese students, graduate students, who came to this country. And then we are all taken to the consul general's place, and then we had to bow towards Tokyo, practically saying, Tennoheika, banzai. And then we grew up after the war, we didn't think like that, so we're just stunned. And then they gave a lecture. The Issei people gave a lecture saying that you are yamato nadeshiko, the flower, you're the Yamato spirit, don't get beaten by haoles. That was really an eye opening experience. That's that family. At the same time, this man, Mr. Koike, gave me a book that he wrote about his experience in this prison, that he was picked up by FBI and right away after the Pearl Harbor, and eventually he was taken to the mainland and then placed in a prison because he was the principal of the Japanese language school. That's nothing to do with the kind of a stirring up Yamato spirit. But at the same time, when I experienced this, so in a way, I can understand. It was an, that family meant a lot to me although he's deceased now, and I have the book. Eventually, I'd like to donate to maybe Yokohama Immigration Museum.