The Twilight Zone (TV Series)
The Encounter (1964)
George Takei: Arthur Takamori, Taro
Photos
Quotes
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Fenton : Well, you don't look like an Arthur to me.
Taro : [sarcastically] You don't look like a soldier, either.
Fenton : [chuckles] Well, you got me there, boy.
Taro : And while we're at it, Mr. Fenton, I get bugged by "boy." Europeans are always calling the natives "boy" and moaning about the white man's burden. Well, the facts are: I'm a full-grown man, I work for a living, and I answer to "Arthur," "Takamori," and, believe it or not, sometimes to "Mr. Takamori."
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Taro : I grew up in Honolulu. I was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed.
Fenton : Were you one of the pilots?
Taro : I was four years old! My father and mother lived in Hawaii all their lives. My father worked for the navy as a civilian.
Fenton : Oh, yeah? Doing what?
Taro : He helped build the docks at Pearl. He was foreman of a construction gang. He was a war hero. He was on the docks when they came that Sunday morning. He was there when the first wave of bombers came over, standing there, watching men of his own race destroy what he'd built with his own hands. The bombers flew overhead. I stood on the hillside where we lived, looked up at the sky and saw them. And my mother held my hand and tried to make me run inside the house. But I stood. And I watched the planes while down below at the harbor, my father was trying to warn the sailors, trying to tell the men on the ships what was happening. But the bombers came anyway, and I could hear the boom, boom, boom, boom as the bombs exploded. And I could see the smoke. And my mother was crying, and my father was yelling to warn the sailors, yelling for them to fire back. Boom! Boom! Boom! Planes circled overhead. They dropped their bombs.
[beat]
Taro : That's not the way it happened. He was a traitor. He signaled the planes. He showed them where to drop the bombs. He was a traitor. My old man was a traitor.
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Taro : Banzai!
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Taro : I got a short fuse, so don't strike matches.
