L07, Keiko Kawamura ‘04, Hiroko Ogawa, Grandmother, 1922, Manchuria
On November 10, 2002, I interviewed my maternal grandmother, Hiroko Ogawa. She was born on August 1, 1922, and she is now 80 years old.
Question: Where are you born?
Answer: I was born in Dairen [now called Dalian] in Manchuria [northeastern China]. At that time Manchuria was under Japan’s control, so Manchuria was temporarily a part of Japan. So many Japanese were living in Dairen that I thought I was living inside a Japanese island when I was small, and I never thought that I would have to return to Japan someday.
Question: Where were you during World War II?
Answer: I was in Dairen until I was 22 years old, although I returned to Tōkyō for two years in order to attend school there. I was in Dairen while Japan was at war with other countries.
Question: Did you have relatives in Japan?
Answer: Yes, most of my relatives were living in Japan at that time.
Question: How did you get information about what was going on in Japan?
Answer: I got the information from newspapers and radio. Also, my father was the president of a newspaper company, so I could easily know what was going on in Japan. I was around 20 years old while the war was going on, but I did not experience combat, nor did I suffer any direct damage from the war.
Question: Have you lost any relatives or family members by the war?
Answer: Yes, right after my younger brother was drafted, he died of disease. He never actually had any fighting experience. Two of my older brothers were drafted as well, but they returned home safely from the war. I have eight siblings, and four of them were male. My eldest brother did not even go to war. The war ended before he was drafted.
Question: What was the population of Japanese in Dairen?
Answer: About 30,000 Japanese were living in Dairen. The city was almost like a part of Japan, and I was able to visit Japan quite frequently by ship. All of my brothers and sisters went to Tōkyō after they graduated from high school in Dairen. Since it was a big family, school expenses were pretty high. Also, my father had to rent a second house with a maid whenever my siblings were attending school in Tōkyō, although the rest of my family lived in Dairen.
Question: What was the education like in Dairen?
Answer: I attended kindergarten and elementary school in Dairen. It was a Japanese school, and all of the classes were in Japanese. Some Chinese learned Japanese in order to be hired as household helpers. There were two or three Chinese in each class and they took classes in Japanese as well. There was no discrimination against Chinese in our school.We became good friends and I enjoyed knowing them a lot. There were only a few Russians in Dairen, but there was a huge population of Russians in Harbin.
Question: Were most of the stores run by Japanese? Or Chinese?
Answer: Most of the stores were run by Japanese. Only a few Chinese were managing the stores. It seemed that the Japanese had a better standard of living than the Chinese did. However, they also had a large share of the economy and daily life.
Question: How was the food?
Answer: We could eat Japanese food and Chinese food whenever we want to eat. We taught our Chinese cook how to make Japanese food. We never had experiences of not being able to eat what we wanted to eat. Since there were a few Russians living in Dairen,we could go to Russian restaurants as well, but we basically ate either Japanese or Chinese food.
Question: How was the weather in Dairen?
Answer: Nice. It was really hot in the summer, just like in Japan, but it was so much colder in the winter. It was cold but dry. In the summer, it was not as humid as Japan
Question: What was the house like?
Answer: Because all windows had double glass structure, and fireplaces heated the whole house, we were never cold at home. There was a huge boiler next to the kitchen which had tubes connected all around the house, so it was quite warm inside the house.
Question: Do you think you suffered during your life in Dairen?
Answer: Not at all! I can hardly say that I had any hardship living in Dairen. I even felt sorry for the Japanese who were suffering from war. I rather preferred my days in Dairen to my life after the war ended. After we came back to Japan, we were treated as hikiagesha, which refers to people who returned to Japan from foreign countries after World War II. The lives of hikiagesha were rather restricted by the government. There were a lot of hikiagesha who did not have houses to live in after they returned to Japan, but my father fortunately had bought a house in Setagaya-ku in Tōkyō right before the war ended, so my family was able to live there. Although our lives were restricted by the government, they did not change drastically, and we were having a high standard of living.
Question: How was the clothing during war?
Answer: We never experienced running out of clothes in Dairen. But when we got kicked out of Dairen, we had to reduce the amount of clothes that we could carry with us. My mother was responsible for choosing my clothes, so I don’t really remember about clothing.
Question: Did you experience any culture shock after you came back to Japan?
Answer: Not much, but I don’t deny that my life became plain after I returned to Japan. I missed Dairen quite often. Even now, I miss Dairen and I consider Dairen as my hometown.
Question: What did you think about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima?
Answer: All the ships that sailed from Dairen to Fukuoka were unable to leave during this period, so it was almost a year later when I finally returned to Japan. On the way to Tōkyō, the train passed by Hiroshima, and I remember seeing the city totally destroyed. Even though I was told about the bombing, I was not informed about the actual damage to Japan.
Question: Did you learn about the war at school?
Answer: No, I did not. I graduated from high school before the Pacific War began, so I was never taught about war at school or during classes.
Question: Did you have any experiences when you were terrified by war?
Answer: When the Russian [Soviet Red Army] soldiers marched into Dairen, I remember getting really frightened. The city mayor was Japanese, and the Japanese government controlled Dairen, so I derived a great sense of inward security from the mere fact of the Japanese government’s existence. However, when Japan lost the war, the attitude of the Chinese towards the Japanese changed drastically, and they told the Soviet soldiers where Japanese lived. I heard some incidents where Japanese were killed by the Russian military. I used to get terrified when Russian soldiers wearing clothes with blood stains came into my house and took everything valuable away. Although my mother had locked all the doors, the Russian soldiers forced open the door and stole everything. Fortunately, we did not get any harm, because our family was quite huge.
Question: What did you think when war finally concluded?
Answer: Well, I thought how grateful I was to be guarded by the government. My life in Dairen was not at all difficult, but it is true that I felt isolated from Japan when they lost the war. And then China took control of Manchuria.
Question: What did you think about the war as a whole?
Answer: There was no actual damage. We led a rather quiet life, protected by my parents, and there was no real fear about the fact that we were in war. We thought that we would somehow survive, and since we were young, we did not worry too much about the future. Since we were blessed with wealth, we did not worry about the Russian troops confiscating material goods from us. It is only after we came back to Tōkyō that we discovered how very fortunate our life up to then was. When we came back to the house in Setagaya, we came back to reality.
Question: What place does Dairen have in your life?
Answer: Dairen was my youth. It was the time of most fun. I still remember each and every season I spent in Dairen. Thanks to my parents, my life in Dairen was very blessed and fortunate. I am sorry that I could not stay in Dairen all my life, because I still consider Dairen my homeland. It was the best time of my life and I still dream about the good times I had in Dairen. But fate brought me back to Japan, and, although I miss Dairen enormously, I did learn to adjust to life in Japan, for after all I am Japanese.