<Begin Segment 22>

TI: I want you to think now in the sixty-three years you've been in Spokane, how the community has changed from the, I wanted to do from the Japanese and Japanese American community. 'Cause you've been part of making some of those changes, especially with, like the Mukogawa University connection and things like that.

ET: Well, okay, let me give you something else. When I came to Spokane, I visited many parks and different gardens and things like that. They have one that's called Duncan Garden, it's a European garden, and it's beautiful. I mean, you know, I looked at it and I said, "You know, I gotta have Japanese garden someday." So when we become sister city with Nishinomiya, it's naturally kind of a chance for, for me to establish Japanese garden here and call it the Nishinomiya Garden. And eventually it was changed to Spokane Nishinomiya Garden, they give that kind of a sister city feeling to that garden. And we started building that about 1965, '64, '65, and completed in 1974 in time for Expo. And when it opened, we had several people came from Japan and looked at it and said, "You have Japanese garden." I said, "What are you talking about?" They said, "Well, the rest of 'em are American Japanese garden, but you have a Japanese..." [laughs] that was a compliment. I tell you, I couldn't believe it. And one of 'em became prime minister of Japan, Hata Tsutomu. He said that, "I got two niwashi," that means Japanese garden specialist, designer, and, "I want them to see it." So he, that's Tom's fairly close friend, Tom Foley, and so they came and I showed them the garden. And those two guys called up all my help to learn how to trim trees and oh, gosh.

TI: So how did, how did you create a traditional Japanese garden? I mean, what expertise, or what --

ET: Well, actually, what happened was, for promotion, what I drew up to promote, didn't look anything like Japanese garden, it was more like a Chinese building and a garden around. But the garden itself maybe was Japanese, but then that building was certainly not Japanese at all. So Kubota, Tak Kubota, Seattle, he's a pretty good friend of mine. And I talked to him and said, Tak said, "I got a guy really help you." "Well, how can I afford it?" "Well," he said, "Why don't you talk to him first, and then..." so his name is Nagao Sakurai, Sakurai Nagao. And he's the one that built the Kubota Garden waterfall, beautiful. So I showed him this, he kind of smiled and said, "Well, you've got the waterfall, and it looks like, but then that's the secondary." So I didn't know just exactly where I should put that. Well, he stayed about two weeks with me, and he drew up plan after seeing this place, and I could take any section and I'd make a garden drawing out of it. He couldn't believe it. And so someday I'd like to show you what it is. It's supposed to be here, but I don't know where it is now, my original drawing of it. That was way before the garden was finished, but it's, now it's finished, it looks just like it. So that's the guy that we give credit to, and he is the one that actually built, designed and built the Imperial Palace Garden, it's a brand-new one.

TI: I'm sorry, the Sakurai...

ET: Sakurai Nagao. His background was he was a Tokyo University graduate, and the first, well, they called it teienka, that means Japanese garden, as a major at the garden, he was the first graduate of that.

TI: That's a good story.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.