Densho Digital Archive - Michiko Kornhauser Interview (denshovh-kmichiko

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SG: So then what was your life like back here in the United States after marriage?

MK: Oh, after when we came, for one week, we lived in apartment. Then we bought a house on the top of the hill, one thousand feet high in the Maunalani Heights. He was able to buy that house because I was in Tokyo. If I had been with him, I don't think we were able to buy the place. That was for the Caucasians. And then so I remember tradesmen used to come up, and then when I open the door, he says, "Where is the mistress of the house?" So I used to say, "She's out." [Laughs] That's the kind, so the neighbors, rich neighbors, had Japanese maids, and they thought that I was maid too, so they used to come and say hello until they found out that I was mistress of the house. And then immediately, my husband began to bring his friends to lunch and dinner. It was like my mother's life, unannounced, and suddenly, so we had to spread the lunch in three or four. I never resented that because that was my mother's life. I thought that I was reliving my mother's life, so I really enjoyed it. Then he loved to give parties, and we happen to have the biggest house among all of the faculty in geography department, so we always had the parties at our house, university functions. And then I realized the first time, "Oh, would you please cook roast beef?" What's roast beef? And he got me a roast beef all tied up, so I cut the strings and open it up. Now, what am I supposed to do? And when he saw that, he just dashed down the hill and then got me the cookbook. "You study this," so I opened up and learned how to make roast beef. And then at least every two weeks, we had somebody come to our house or otherwise from Europe or Japan. Somebody is coming through Hawaii because airplanes those days couldn't fly directly from Japan to the mainland, so they always stopped in either Alaska or at Hawaii. So those people came and stayed with us. The European people came and stayed with us, and so my house was always full of people, then always with professors and graduate students. Then I was able to cook something, sat down, and I didn't know what they're saying. You know, by that time, I was able to understand what they're saying, but the meaning of it, I didn't know the difference between gray uniform and blue uniform, and I was getting so frustrated because I was a maid, no more than a maid preparing meals and sit quietly and listen.

Then I realized I was getting so frustrated inside, so I told him I'm going to study American history. And then also I had a German friend who saw my life and then said, "Michiko, you're being taken advantage of. How come you can't make a sandwich and send him off so you have free time all day?" And then I told that to Dave, and said, "Well, I want to have free time. I want to learn how to drive the car." And then he said, "I don't like that woman." [Laughs] Well, but she's still my friend at University of Washington. But I was able to take, so when I took him to the campus, my life was up till then took him to the campus, came home, made lunch, made hot lunch and took him to the campus, ate lunch together, went home. At 4:30, I went back again to the campus and then came home, just, that's my routine. And then my German friend said, "That's crazy. If you can't give him sandwiches, why don't you make sandwiches for two of you and take to the campus and stay there on the campus, take couple of courses," which I did, and that's the way I learned. The more, I took all the 101 level courses, anthropology, political science, and whatnot and then Chinese literature, Japanese literature, and American history and everything that's available, and then I began to enjoy myself. And I enjoyed giving parties, and I enjoyed having professors and so on and so forth. It was a wonderful life.

Then my son came along, and I realized that my body is allergic to children, and then I had three miscarriages. And then finally, I was able to have my son by, staying in bed. In fact, after 5th month, he almost killed me because he became the poison to my body because my body was so allergic to foreign substance. But I was able to have him although I was half dead. And then when he was born, the doctor gave me too much medication and painkiller that went up to the head. And then when I woke up after he was born, I was out of my body and looking at myself from the corner of the room, and I had a horrible time coming back to my body. And I tried to get in through my nose and every opening in my body that I couldn't, I just couldn't. It was a fascinating experience. I wrote about that. And my vision became split in two, dead people here and then this is where I was. And then sometimes this became big and then dead people, Dave's parents I never met said, "Come, come. It's beautiful, like May weather with forest-like atmosphere, just come, just come with us. It's a beautiful place." Then the next moment, this scene appears. Dave was going around the delivery table around and around, "Michiko, Michiko," going like that, and that became, like this, and I got so confused. Then I said, "Where is the baby?" The moment I thought about the baby, I came back to my body. That's the way I came back. And then doctor said that, "You shouldn't live with modern medicine. You should live in Africa with all the plants." That's what happened. But otherwise, I was able to have a wonderful life throughout Hawaii. And we went to, he had to teach at UBC, University of British Columbia, [inaudible] College, and then Miye University in Miye, Japan, and so we traveled a lot. And we taught on the cruise ship towards the end, so we are on the ship for six weeks teaching about Japan. I took care of the cultural aspects of it. He took care of the geography. And as far as the life is concerned, in Hawaii was I think the best anyone can think of, but I had to make a lot of effort to enjoy it.

SG: You worked during any of that time?

MK: Well, he didn't want me to work. He was so jealous. I felt like a bird in a cage unless I assert myself. Then one year when I came back from Miye University, I didn't know anything about taxes. He didn't know anything about taxes either. All the income he was getting was taxable. I didn't know what taxable meant because always CPA took care of it. And then CPA made a mistake. We had to pay tremendous fine. Then I said to myself, this is ridiculous. I'm going to do it myself. So I went to school, business college, and then became a tax accountant and worked in the CPA office in charge of computer room. That lasted, every day was a battle because he didn't want me to work, but I'm glad I did. And that's the only time I worked maybe only a few years, but I was able to take care of myself when he died.