<Begin Segment 10>

MN: We're gonna come back to talking about you now. We're gonna talk about you. How often did you leave Terminal Island and go to downtown to Little Tokyo?

CH: Oh, I had a Model A. When I was growing up, maybe six or seven or eight years old, they used to have a Red Car in San Pedro, so we used to get on the Red Car and go, whenever you want to buy Japanese stuff, we go all the way to L.A., come to L.A. on the Red Car back and forth. Yeah, we used to go at least maybe once in two month or maybe sometimes once a month. But we had a relative living in L.A. Red Car take only maybe forty minutes maybe or something. Maybe half an hour, forty minutes. And then when I grew up, I had my own jalopy, Model A, you ever heard of a Model A, Tom? I used to take that back and forth all the time. I take the young guys all over the place. Model A.

MN: Let's go back to your relative who had a market. Where was it and what was it called?

CH: It's Nishimi Market, and it was located at North First Street, San Pedro. North San Pedro Street. Main Street and First Street, right, in San Pedro? But there's south and north right there, that's the boundary. But north one block, one block north, Nishimi Market. And the other one was, live on Seventh and Kohler Street. Kohler. That's south. Between Central and San Pedro, Kohler Street.

MN: That was your uncle?

CH: Yeah. My mother's cousin. My mother's cousin.

MN: And this is the person that had the flower designing business?

CH: Huh?

MN: Did he have a flower designing business?

CH: Oh, yeah, that's the one. That's the one the cousin, flower designing. See, after she died, my sister took over. That's why she became rich. I thought, how about some money? Yeah, but hey, even if you're rich, you die, huh? What's the sense having money? No sense. Spending the money, like me, I'm different from those Kibei guys. Japan, I don't know, Japan people are a little bit different from the way I think, you know that?

MN: Did you take judo lessons?

CH: Yeah, I took judo.

MN: How far did you go up?

CH: Well, my, what do you call, my character, my character wasn't that good. That's why, even if I had the ability of black belt, my character is bad. That's why I got only Nikyuu, second of brown belt. Then you go to first brown belt. Sankyuu, Ikyuu, then Shodan. My brother, he was good one, that guy, from Japan. He was the oldest one.

TI: Explain that again. Your character wasn't good? What do you mean by that? I don't understand that.

CH: I was a juvenile delinquent. I used to be a cook, help yourself kind. Whatever the opportunities, come help myself, come grab it and take off. Not only me, my gang was like that. We had the worst gang. Nobody wanted to play with us guys.

TI: And how old were you right now at this point?

CH: Well, I was, from fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Or eighteen... seventeen I got caught, that's why eighteen I was a good boy.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.