My father's family came from Kurate. They were farmers. He had been brought up here, so he knew everyone in town, but I knew no one when we first came here. I looked for children I could be friends with. The school was overcrowded (there would have been more than 60 children in one class), and of these about half were from coalmining families, and half from farmers' families. The children from the coalmining families were open and friendly with me because they were used to moving from place to place and seeing lots of new faces, but the farmers' children were quite cold towards me. They were always so controlled and stuck with their own groups.

Of course I wanted to play with the coalmining children, so I often used to go to the tanjū to play after school. The Koyama Tanjū in those days was a very primitive place compared with the village where I was staying, and I was shocked by the terrible conditions the people lived in. When my parents found out that I was going to play with the coalmining children they were angry and said that I must not go to that dirty and dangerous place. They were very aware of the difference between ‘normal people’ (ippanjin) and coalminers (tankofu). […]