I wasn’t treated differently…and I spoke Japanese enough. Sometimes, you know, they used to have English classes. They would come to me and ask me sometimes, English words. But they seemed to be all right. They never asked me or treated me differently. But I think when I was studying dance, though, I think I got special attention because I was from America, studying, special, to be there.
Oh, they treated me like everybody else. What I think my dance teacher, though, I think she gave me special attention. And I think my teacher saw something in me, also, that I had something, also, because, I hate to say this, but they all said I had something. When I even came to Portland, the other teacher was there, Tachibana teacher (Note: same dance school as Sahomi), and I gave a concert. And one of the ladies came up to me, and she told me, “There’s nobody who dances like you.” And I think my teacher felt the same way, that I was something special. I had something because she used to say about one of her other “natori” (Japanese: credentialed) that I had a little more power or strength in my dancing, whereas the other natori was good, but she didn’t have the power or strength that I did. So it was something else that I must’ve had. But I didn’t know if I had all these things.