JAPANESE SEAMEN VISIT U.S.A.

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5315, 30 January 1947, Page 3

JAPANESE SEAMEN VISIT U.S.A.

5 | FIRST 'SINCE WAR i AMUSING HAND-OUT TO 1 JOURNALISTS i , | The first Japanese -seamen to j arrive in an American port in five | yearc anchored the Army trans- | port George A. Custer in ' San S Francisco Bay recently. The cap- | tain, M. Ishikawa, a caricature-like j little Japanese in a tight-fitting and | wrinkled blue merchant marine | uniform, greeted us in his cahin,. | writes Rohert Brunn in the Chrisf tian Science Monitor. : He was flanked by a United States ! Army major and a Navy lieutenant I commander, who are in charge of re1 ceiving the 200-odd American vessels j which the Japanese are returning after repatriating some 4,500,000 sol- ■ diers and nationals from the former Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity iSphere. Captain Ishikawa blinked as flash bulbs popped. He was neither stern, rnor jovia'l, but dignified with one hhnd on his desk and the other in his lap. He quite evidently felt the weight of the" responsibility that was his — leader of the first group of Japanese to see the United States after bitter years of war. Sitting there. he no longer was the sea captain, but the envoy. We had seen the boyish faces of his crew of 48 grinning or staring from various parts of the ship's interior as we clambered aboard from the tug. There was no fear in their eyes, only curiosity. An embarrassed Japanese- American Pfc. from Seattle, Washington, assigned as interpreter for the afternoon, had guided us to the captain's cabin. Honourable Hand-out We had expected to use the interpreter to pry some reactions frc-m Captain Ishikawa, but after the popping of the bulbs, his purser stepped forward in approved American public- relations manner and gave us a two-page press "hand-out" duplicated on thin, soft rice paper. It». must have been the result of a night-long wrestling match with an English dictionary. "We are the first Japanese seamen who came over to America after the war," the statement began, "and very glad and much admiring in the depths of ^>ur hearts to know that your attitudes to Japanese seamen do not. show any difference from before the war, remembering up and comparing with the experiences of having come to the States a few years agc-. "We think this will be the first steps for us to understand what democracy is. and what the Golden Rule of the Bible is, "Do to others what you would be done by." The statement went on to say how the Japanese had "led with the wrong militarism," and suflrered waiting for their scldiers to return from war. He thanked the United States for cutting the wait from the anticipated four years to a year and less through our "understanding help and sympathy for demobilisation which brought the loan of the Liberty ships. Hazy Notioris We "rejoiced many pocr ladies and children who were looking for their iovely fathers and husbands coming back, although their faces were pale and exhausted from starve and tireness," the captain's statement read. And he thanked the United States for General MacArthur's action in relieving the "foods shortage" — a sign of "1 eartful sympathy."

"We are now exerting with all cur strength and ability for re-estahlish-ing Kew Japa'n which should be able to play a great part at the international stage to bring peace to the world," he promised. He admitted hazily, "We have not good enough knowledge to put definition on democracy but only know that true freedom should require us to act with each responsibility." In another sentence, "Whatever we may do Jxeely, we should be responsible 'for it." Reading Captain Ishikawa's rice paper hand-out, one could laugh at the careful choice of wrong words. Or it' one believed in the success of ;American policy in Japa'n, one could swell a bit with pride and consider this a lesson well learned. Too, one inight match the pathos of his words with one's cwn war-felt emotion. Or one could read the whole with tongue in cheak as a parrotted, on-the-surface expression of expediency. Laughter, pride, sympathy, or despair may greet Captain Ishikawa's statement in any one of millions of American homes. But his statement and the presence of his bofcbing, curious crew in San Francisco Bay remind us that there are millions of Ishikawas in Japan — waiting expectantly and watching our every move.