<Begin Segment 8>

AC: So how was it for you showing up in Japan, not being able to speak the language, and going to school? Do you remember how you felt at the time?

JT: You know, that's a funny thing. It must be as a child, a kid around first grade, you just assimilate that language, you know, and you just give up your other language. And when I came back to the USA, I was, didn't speak English. But somehow, must be playing with peers, that you pick the language back up. I came back... I got a case of lice, and so they shaved all my hair off. And I think... is it measles that you get pockmarks on, or chicken pox, one of the two. So when we came back from Japan, my sister and I and Mom, here's this little kid with bald head and pockmarks and speaking nothing but Japanese, and my brothers said they didn't recognize me. [Laughs] 'Cause it was brothers that came up and picked us up.

AC: So how old were your brothers at that time?

JT: Okay, let's see, 1939, my brother Henry... I was seven... by god, he was about twenty. But, yeah, he was twenty.

AC: So they were all out of the house and working?

JT: No, that I don't... you know, when we were still in Hillsboro store, and then Dad died, then Hank, Henry, my brother, had to drive Mom in to Portland to pick up the vegetables, fruit, whatever, and then she would barter with the growers and then take them back to the store in Hillsboro and sell them. When Dad was living, George, my brother George, said that sometimes Dad would just go out and buy a field of peaches, just buy the whole entire lot. And then the kids would go out and pick 'em, and then they'd sell 'em in the store.

AC: So do you remember if you had to make any adjustments or if you missed anything from the United States when you were in Japan for that long?

JT: No, you don't remember those. I wished I did, but I don't.

AC: So when you came back and you spoke nothing but Japanese and you were tossed back in the school again, do you remember how you felt about that?

JT: No. See, that's what I was just thinking, how did I learn back, learn the language again? But like I say, peers, you go around with your peers and they're talking to you, pretty soon you pick it up, I guess. 'Cause I didn't go to school to learn how to speak English.

AC: Do you remember much about your grandfather at all?

JT: No, no. I don't even remember my father.

AC: What about the aunt that you stayed with who had the Japanese bathhouse? Was that different for you?

JT: That was a different living... so she was a short little lady, and we visited her later on with my wife's parents. They were our tour guide when, the time when we went to Japan.

AC: Did she remember you?

JT: You know, this is embarrassing, but we're getting ahead of the story, but when Dad, Grandpa and Grandma took us and he was our tour guide, he arranged for the shinkansen and all of the hotels, and then we went over to Shikoku and Tokushima. And one of the children came and got us at the port. And we went to Tokushima and went to this short lady, and she bought a huge plate of sushi, I remember, and we went upstairs in this house there and we talked. I talked through Dad, you know, and they had to come back. And all of a sudden she said, "I remember you. You're the one that shishi-ed in bed all the time." [Laughs] I said, "That's me."

AC: Do you remember that?

JT: I remember that. I was a bedwetter 'til I don't remember when.

AC: Oh, my.

JT: Oh, my. That's a good way to be remembered, huh? "Shishi boy." [Laughs] But she said, "I remember you now." I said, "That was me." And so that was a nice, nice conversation. That was one cousin, one of the cousins from Japan, and she was short, like all of us. And then there was another one that we visited, and he was a wealthy... well, they were both wealthy. God, made us look like paupers. And the one in Tokushima owned quite a few real estate in the area. Then the other one looked just like my sister, Helen, another woman cousin. But he was a big ship baron, god, he had lots of freight vessels that he loaded up cargo and back. So he did quite well, and he had quite a house, and the grounds were just like, you know, these Japanese gardens, that I remember. And I can't remember his name now.

AC: What else do you remember of your time in Japan?

JT: I do remember Mom took us to a, what they call takarazuka, it's a troupe of women who portray men and women, and that I remember going to that, and that's about all I remember. But that kind of stood in my mind.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.