Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

adjourn. I was young and had never been away on a trip like that, and certainly never away
from my children for three weeks. I did not want to go without Dan. I remember I was just
distraught. And he said, “No, you go, and you’ll have a good time.” And then the question
was “who was the leader of the delegation?” No, not I.
Hughes: Really?
Evans: It was sort of a quiet duel between the Mayor of Seattle, Gordon Clinton, and Lud
Kramer, who was the Secretary of State. It was very important mostly to the Japanese
when we were in Japan, to know who the leader was because that’s the person you defer
to and you sit at the right place at the tables, and on and on – all the protocol that was
involved. And they didn’t quite know what to do. I feel sorry about that in retrospect. But
at any rate, I went off on this trip with the delegation, and of course had a marvelous time.
I became very good friends with Governor Kanai of Hyogo Prefecture – that’s our
sister state – and Mrs. Kanai. I had some memorable side trips with Mrs. Kanai, who
spoke no English. She was just the most wonderful woman. I just loved her. We had an
interpreter who spoke beautiful English and who had spent time in America, so understood
Americans. They were both so dignified in their carriage and everything they did. And
they loved Mother and Tina. So we three women went along with them on side trips. I
remember the beautiful garden in Hyogo, in Kobe, where the azaleas and the rhodies were
all in bloom. They had this tea ceremony. If you’ve ever had a tea ceremony you know
they’re a wonderful, beautiful thing to watch, but the tea is just terrible. It looks like split
pea soup, but tastes awful. Mrs. Kanai at that time had to be in her sixties, and I was so
much younger, but we corresponded until she died. She learned to write a little English on
her Christmas cards. Enough to say, “Hello…” But at any rate, Mrs. Kanai had knelt down
at the tea ceremony. And the woman who was the interpreter knelt down. I knelt down
for a while. And Mother said, “I cannot kneel.” My mother was in her seventies. And so
she said, “You’ll just have to excuse me.” That’s the way Mother was. And of course, Mrs.
Kanai couldn’t have been more charming. She said, “You sit however you want.” But they
all kneel. So mother sort of just did this thing, sitting like this. And we watched, and it
was a wonderful thing to observe this ancient ritual as this tea master was doing the tea
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