<Begin Segment 28>

MH: Yeah, Asian countries are all the same. Now we have this dragon boat race in August. You should see... 50,000 people gather in that Sloans Lake and they're not only Asians but they're all others taking part. Originally it was for the Asian people, but the other people are all taking part in the boat race. None of them are, somebody sponsored like if it's Qwest or some company, they hire boats for so many dollars, hundreds of dollars for a race. And they get these people to recruit to race. They're all Caucasian people, or they're all another, well, there is a Chinese group, or there's a Vietnamese group and Cambodian group. And they all have, but they still have other people in to join, whoever's strong enough to paddle that thing, you know, to get first place. And it was a one-day event, now it's a two-day event. It's so big, it's gotten so huge. And it's so hot -- and all the vendors, there must be hundreds of them out there. All, every country is represented. And it's interesting.

MA: Well, it seems like it's become more of a city-wide thing.

MH: That's what you call Asian, it's a city-wide thing. And it's an Asian community so that people can learn what other country, what they do, what they wear. They have a stage set up for each group like the Asians, like the Indonesian, and the Indian, the Chinese and the Koreans. And the Japanese have taiko. They're known for their taiko group. And then those that their costumes are different and it's educational for the younger kids, the younger people that are growing up, to know that there are other country's doings that you're going to learn in the meantime. So it's, it has changed a lot. It has changed. We were thinking of Japanese community, the Buddhist temple was only the biggest place where you can gather because seating is pretty big, you can seat a lot of people. So a lot of things were going on in there. But now it's spreading out to other areas. So we don't have as much like that. And we had Japanese theater places, but we don't have that anymore, because everybody has their own video. And now they got cable that you can get direct from Japan. And so there's no need to have an auditorium, special place to, so we try to keep the temple open for a lot of events when we can have it. Because it's big enough to hold several hundred people at a time. And so, that's why the Simpson church had their annual Girls' Day Festival, the Boys' Day Festival, the crafts show and those things. And then we have our own things going on here at the temple, too. So cherry blossom is the big one. That's when we gather up everybody, everybody can come. And then, of course, the main thing is calligraphy and flower arranging, and tea ceremonies, and, and paper, origami, the paper folding. And then we do, we did have nine health fair, where you can have a free screening and stuff like that but it was too much work for everybody. So we did it two years, but they can't seem to do it this year again. But the Chinese people have their own setup for that free screening and free medical help for those that can't speak English. And they have it at Tamai Tower for two years now. And it's helped people get screened out for lung tests and skin tests and sugar and cholesterol. And it helps a lot.

MA: Yeah, it's interesting. You've seen a lot of changes.

MH: Oh yeah, we didn't have, and Asian community is growing, cause we're not all Japanese. We've got Koreans, we've got Thai, we've got Thai students that live in our apartment that go to school. They're very nice. They're very friendly and casual, and they speak fairly good English. And they have opened up a lot of restaurants now because there's so many of them moving in here, so we have, you have a choice of going to all these different restaurants. Not like, you know, not only Italian food, or Mexican food. You got a choice of going anywhere you want to go. It's there. It's just a matter of your taste. [Laughs]

MA: Great, well, you know I'm going to wrap up here. But thank you so much for doing this interview.

MH: You're welcome.

MA: It was very interesting and I learned a lot.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.