Densho Digital Archive - Michiko Kornhauser Interview (denshovh-kmichiko

<Begin Segment 9>

SG: So during this time after the war, you kept going to school?

MK: Yes, I kept going to school, definitely, yes. And then my mother arranged it so that I would become tuition-free student so that I didn't have to go to public school, so I stayed on at Fuzoku Shogakko, this University School.

SG: Was that unusual at that time?

MK: I guess, but we had no money, no other choice. So my mother was very good at that.

SG: Was it unusual for a girl to continue her education through high school during that time after the war?

MK: No, because MacArthur made sure that we would have basic education; six, three, then a three, high school, elementary school, six years and junior high school, then senior high school. But the basic education is nine years I think all together, but then still, you can't do anything unless you become a maid or something. I didn't want to become a maid. So my mother also encouraged that, one day we had absolutely nothing, we are hungry, we had no heat. And in the wintertime, we huddled together to keep each other warm because no heating source in the house. Then my mother used to tell me, tell us all kinds of stories. Then one of the things my father, my mother said was that study hard. We have nothing. War took away everything. My mother kept the valuable things that my father collected from Europe and China in a storage. Storage got the direct hit, and we lost everything, all the valuables things. Although fortunately, the fire stopped burning about a few blocks away. Our house was okay, but house had nothing. The valuable things weren't there, so we had absolutely nothing. And inflation took care of the savings. And my father was very proud that he had enough money until we got married. Everything was all fixed, but the inflation took care of that. And I remember holding, looking at the, post office savings that we used to save money in there, and my mother kind of looked at it and said, "You know, your father thought that this would take care of you, your marriage and everything. Can't buy rice, even buy rice."

SG: When you think back about your mother and father, do you remember them telling you certain stories or singing songs or doing some activity with you and your brothers and sister?

MK: Yes. My father was always away, and then so all I can remember is that when my father came home, he always had his friends, so I just sat on his lap and then sip beer and so on and pretending that I was princess or something. And then when I went shopping, once in a while, my mother would send me out to shop. And then my father when he was home, he came with me, and I remember holding on to his hand and how warm he was and his hand was. And also sometimes he would have me on his shoulder, and then I was such a proud daughter to him. Yeah, I remember, I remember that. But my mother, every time, every morning when I woke up, my mother was singing, not the Japanese songs. Somehow, she had the kind of disdained attitude about Japanese music, shamisen, koto and all these things, Japanese things. She was more of a western music. Since she was singing in the opera house as a kind of minor role, my lullaby and so on that I can remember, "Santa Lucia" from Madame Butterfly or all these opera music that I grew up with, but not Japanese songs because my, I think she was rebellious against my grandmother because my grandmother was good at calligraphy, and she was teaching calligraphy, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, shamisen, uta, a Japanese way of singing, everything to do with the, that she could put her hands on, she did because the women couldn't do much of anything in Japan when my grandmother was growing up. That first train, my grandma remembers first train that ran in Yokohama area, she went to see that. But women had no place in society except being a housewife or otherwise becoming a nurse and then, or take care of somebody's hair, beautician.