A Relocation Story
by Tomiye Hyodo

My husband, daughter and I came to San Francisco from Japan in February of 1988. During the first week, we enjoyed the feeling of being tourists as our friends showed us around. The sights we saw and the experiences we had were all a first to us and we enjoyed those weeks.

However, after that, we soon realized that there were a lot of things that needed to be taken care of in order for us to live here. Things that would have only taken us two to three days to complete, if we understood the English language, took a lot of time to complete. We had to correct many of our mistakes, and a lot of our money went to waste. Often times we had uneasiness about the future. I can't even remember how many times when going out to eat, I ended up having to drink coke when I ordered coffee. Things did not go as easy as the books stated.

Luckily, our eldest daughter started attending school, and since she was a child, she was able to quickly learn the language and helped us out by translating for us. Our second and third daughters were born here in San Francisco and fortunately, they were able to get accepted into Nihonmachi Little Friends. A good place where they were able to take care of children for a long period of time. The kids were happy to attend, and I would be able to leave them there with no worries.

Occasionally, when we'd go back to Japan, our second and third daughters who did not know the place, after a few days would want to come back to San Francisco and go to school to see their friends. To me, Japan is our home country and at first, their thoughts of not wanting to stay there gave us mixed feelings. However after much thought, we knew it was understandable for them to feel that way and we soon realized that aside from the language, San Francisco was a much better place to live.

In Japan, where problems are arising because children are not willing to go to school, I am very fortunate to have three daughters who have never once said they disliked school or did not want to attend school.

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