After the meal, Mr. Mudie slowly spread out his poems on the table.  These were poems which he had written at the Naoetsu POW Camp during the World War II.  To meet Mr. Yagi's request, being that he wanted to introduce the poems to the people of Joetsu, Mr. and Mrs. Mudie, Jenny, and Rod were about to decide, in accordance with their criteria, which poems should go to Japan.  They discussed it, and sometimes they asked for my opinion.  The poems handed to me seemed unlikely to become a cause of controversy, and with my "no problem," they were put into an envelope that I would take with me back to Joetsu.  They sometimes had a heated argument over some poems.  At one time Mr. Mudie decided that a poem should be publicized, but when Rod said, "Once it goes through your hands, then it will speak for itself," he changed his mind.  As a result, not many poems were handed over to me.

So involved were we in our work, we didn't become aware that it had already become dark by the time we had finished.  We left Mudie's home for North Sydney, where Rod lives, to find a hotel for the night. We had planned to stay near Jenolan Caves in vicinity of Cowra, but because our travel arrangements were very flexible, we could plan whatever we wanted to do at the start and end of each day. Thus a far superior arrangement than the stringent typical package tours.  The only scheduled destination was Cowra, where the International Youth Forum was to be held.

In the car heading for North Sydney, I wondered what had been written in the poems he made him decide not to release them to us.  It would be wonderful if they came out into the open here in Joetsu and if they struck a responsive chord in the hearts of their readers.

Japanese people are said to differentiate between "insiders" and "outsiders"--while saying to outsiders, "We don't know anything," all insiders know they do.  Reflecting on the way Japan-Australia Society of Joetsu treats Japanese and Australians, I wonder whether it is a society open to both of them, giving an equal treatment to each other and circulating the same messages among us, though we do know there exists a language barrier.  We should be fair and honest to everybody.

The next day, Mrs. Ishizuka and Mr. Nishizawa, who had left Japan two weeks earlier, joined us in Cowra.  They must have had many interesting experiences throughout their trip.  I really keen to listen to their stories.