Bunro Sakaino Concentration Camp Diary

January 25 (Monday)

A memorial service was held for late Mr. Ueda in the J Area at 3 p.m.

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All the fellow citizens from each area except for the prisoners of war attended the service. About 60 Buddhist monks and Christian priests attended, and priest Kuchiba from the Hawaii Nishi Honganji temple read Sutra and led the service in solemnity with quiet rain falling in the background.

I received a letter from Ms. Masako Onishi in the Hunt Relocation Center [1] in Idaho on December 16th. The letter was well-written in beautiful handwriting as always. The letter included detailed descriptions of unbearable muddy conditions of the center. She sent kind wishes to me about my illness mentioning I was “gradually recovering”.

I mailed out a paper doll made by Mr. Ito in the camp from Seattle to Mrs. Kiso this afternoon. We are allowed to send out items up to four pounds without postage once a month. The doll was given to me, and I accepted as a gift to mark my recovery and leaving the hospital.

I heard the mail delivered to our K Area has reached a total of 1,000. They are all inspected in New York though and experiencing obvious delay.

Mr. Tanbara and Mr. Takahashi started to practice how to play the satsuma biwa lute. There are a lot of people with various interests among my fellow residents in the 1906 unit. Mr. Sata practices haiku poetry writing and painting. Mr. Takahashi plays the biwa lute. Mr. Tanbara plays the biwa lute, practices calligraphy and painting and the Kanze style singing (recently started). Mr. Shinome paints, and Mr. Shozo Sasaki plays Japanese chess. Mr. Sakimura writes senryu poetry, and Mr. Ishizuka plays Japanese chess and practices his English.

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Mr. Okamoto also sings. It is nice to see and should be encouraged.

Cold air hit at night, and the temperature started to plunge. We have freezing cold climate forecasted starting today according to the newspaper this morning. It is such insane weather.

[1] This is the name the author used