<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So I'm curious, on the flip side, were there Japanese language schools in Prince Rupert?

HS: Yes, there was.

TI: Now, did you have to go to --

HS: I had to go to Japanese language school just like they did in everywhere. On Saturdays we had to, Saturday morning, we'd have to go to Japanese language school. Or, no, and then later on I think they used to have some of them after school, where you'd go to...

TI: So where would you go for Japanese language school?

HS: They had a big, what they call a kaigan. Kaigan or Japanese hall, and that was, belonged to the Japanese community. A big hall, it had a second floor that was like a gym, (...) where there's a big hall with a hardwood floor, not a -- well, I forgot what they would use in those days, probably shiplap floor. But it was, it was varnished well, so they could play basketball in there. And I remember they would play basketball in that, in that hall. At the one end, one end they had a, a stage, with the curtains and everything so that they would, they could carry on plays, and then on the other end, it was, they had a second sort of a balcony so you can have a... and they, that one, it seems to me that that might have been a place that occasionally they would hold their Buddhist ceremony, their Buddhist, what you might call church or ceremony. I think that might have been where it was. I didn't know much about that, but I don't know if... somebody who was Buddhist would have known whether or not they did actually have their, but it seems to me that that might have been where they might have held. And then the whole lower, that was the second level, then the lower level, which was sort of halfway up, halfway below the ground, was like the basement. They had, I think they had about six different rooms in there where they had, they would have Japanese language school there, and they would have something like, oh, there were three or four different levels which you were, and we would have to go there for Japanese language instructions.

TI: Now, I'm curious, what did you guys, what did you call the Japanese language school?

HS: Nihongakko, I guess.

TI: Nihongakko?

HS: Which would be "Japanese school." And it was, it was, to most of us, it was a real chore to have to go there. It was always, going to our own school, and then after a while we'd have to go there after that, go to the Japanese language school, and then it was, all the other kids, our friends, would go out to play, we would have to go to another school. It was quite a ways from our place; we had to walk to it. From where we were, it would have to be up on, it was up on the, up on the hill, it was about, well, it would be about half a mile away from, from where our restaurant was. We lived right in the restaurant, we had a suite put aside where we had a little parlor, and then a little den, you might call it, where Papa kept his books and things, and then we had two bedrooms.

TI: And this is in that same building as the restaurant.

HS: As the restaurant. It occupied two, three rooms, three rooms that the walls were taken down, changed...

TI: Was it the same level as the rest of the hotel, too, there was a hotel there?

HS: It was the second level. That was our, our place where we stayed. So Papa stayed right at, we, as a family, we stayed right in the, in the hotel.

TI: Okay.

HS: Nishikazes lived in, they had a house.

TI: A block away.

HS: A block away, and I think that was also owned by the, the restaurant was made into kind of a company, and it owned, not only it owned the restaurant and hotel, but I guess my father had worked out, bought a house in which Nishikazes lived in. He had the house behind it, it was lived, he was a Serbian, Peter Schabuch, we used to call him.

TI: Now, I'm curious, you mentioned the ownership of this company, were there restrictions on the, the Isseis in terms of land ownership or anything like that?

HS: I don't know how, there wasn't because my father owned that, they had two houses there, one was a small little house, the other one was the one that Nishikazes lived in, and I think he had another one after that, as well. He had about three or four as a part of the Dominion Cafe. Nowadays, you'd say Dominion Cafe corporation, but in those days, it was just, it was just Dominion Cafe, and Papa (...) and his partner, George, owned a bunch of houses, that's all.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.