Interviews

1. Grandmother's influence on decision to go to Japan

2. Band-Aid realization

3. Japanese influence growing up

4. Looking at your country from the outside

5. Buddhism in America and Japan

6. Wife's family in Japan

Okasaki,Robert (Bob) Kiyoshi

(b.1942) Japanese American ceramist, who has lived in Japan for over 30 years.

Buddhism in America and Japan

We were brought up as Buddhists. And as I said, it wasn’t just religion. The church was the center of help for everyone, for all the Isseis and Niseis that were struggling. So in America, because religion is such an important part of everyone’s life, we attended Sunday school, church on Sunday. And a friend of mine—interesting— when he came to Japan, one Sunday, when we were at the university in Tokyo, he went to a temple in Tokyo. He was wandering around on Sunday, and he asked the priest, “When does the service start?” And the priest looked at him with a strange look and said, “What service?” because the Buddhist religion, the way it’s practiced here, is so different from how it’s practiced in the States.

Buddhism Finding Home (film) religion religions

Date: November 28, 2003

Location: Saga, Japan

Interviewer: Art Nomura

Contributed by: Art Nomura, Finding Home.

Interviewee Bio

Robert Kiyoshi Okasaki, 61-year-old Yonsei (on his mother’s side) was born in French Camp, California, in 1942, just before his family was incarcerated during World War II at the Rowher concentration camp in Arkansas. After the war, Bob’s family lived in Stockton and later in Lodi, California, where his family had a vineyard.

Bob attended San Jose State College, eventually concentrating on pottery. Through the Study Abroad program, Bob became an apprentice to a potter, a Living National Treasure, in Japan where tableware is considered an art.

When Bob journeyed to Japan, he felt American, but now when comes home to the U.S., he does not feel American. He’s been married since 1975 to a Japanese woman and their first child was born in 1985. When he first arrived in Japan, recalls Bob, Japanese nationals treated him sometimes like “he was not all there” because of his lack of Japanese language. His relationship with his wife’s family has changed from an original relationship of caution to one of comfort, to the point where he now feels that her family is his family.(November 28, 2003)