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JG: What do you say, now I'm interested in, in what would you say to someone, I mean, along the lines of what you're talking, why should we use a Japanese American mortuary? What is the necessity of that in this day and age? And I guess you could, another way of looking at that, too, is... well, let's ask that question first, then I've got another one. But what would you say to someone who was just asking you, honestly, why, why your mortuary? Why not Forest Lawn?

GF: Because we still know the little idiosyncrasies of being Japanese, the little customs of being Japanese. Forest Lawn would have no idea what koden is, and I don't care what generation you are, you still give koden. You still -- you're aware what koden is?

JG: Uh-huh.

GF: Yeah. You still find people, even your young people, your next generation, still giving koden. They're still aware of a lot of the little idiosyncrasies with the Japanese, the going out to the luncheon afterward, the otoki after the service. It's just, and then if it's a Buddhist service, for example, Forest Lawn would have no idea how to do a Buddhist service. They may have done Buddhist services, but they're very intricate, I think, and there are instructions that you have to deal with when you have a Buddhist service. When to do the incense offering, who goes first, how you have the people do the incense offering. With the Japanese, even with Christian, you have the floral offerings, so I think a lot of other mortuaries aren't aware of that. These are the things we still see people using.

JG: Have you noticed, I mean, just in, forty years is a long time to be in any organization, even longer, I guess, if you look at your family, your extended family's relationship to the mortuary. I mean, have customs changed?

GF: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely customs have changed, and you do, you do see, with the passing of the Issei generation who are a little more traditional, and as I mentioned, like one of the customs was where they're at the cemetery, they'll line up all the flowers and everyone stands in the picture. And the reason why they would do this is is some of these families would have relatives in Japan, so they'd take this picture, send it back to Japan. Now with your third, second, third, fourth generation, "Why do we have to take a picture if we don't need to?" So there are certain customs that have been changing and evolving. They used to have the funeral services in the evening, 7:30 during the winter, 8:00 at night, and the reason why is during the summer -- I'm hungry, too [laughs] -- during the summer you have longer daylight hours, so you would have it later, and the reason is back then, especially with the Issei generation, a lot of the people who would actually go to the funeral were day workers. They were your gardeners, they were your farmers, and so as not to inconvenience them from leaving the farms or leaving their routes, they would have the funerals in the evening. Now you find the Japanese are assimilating more, and you have more professional workers so that they can take off during the daytime, but you do find that more and more services are being held privately, more and more services are being held at the mortuary on Saturdays, more and more private services. So there are different customs that have changed. Limousine, I remember we would be driving limousines for all of our services, picking up the family, taking them to the funeral. We don't even own a limousine now, as most families prefer not being picked up in the limousine. So there are certain customs, certain traditions that are changing. I remember speaking to Reverend Russell Hamada and he's, he was up in, he passed away, but he was up in Mountain View, and he says even San Francisco has little different type of service than they do down here. And Hawaii, too, is different. Even though we're all Japanese, it's kind of a localized custom. In Hawaii, for example, at the funeral home they have a large gathering area and a kitchen, so after the funeral, then they go right next door and then they have the luncheon.

JG: And yet for, for all the changes that have occurred, there's still, in your estimation, there still is value in having a specifically ethnic mortuary to attend to the community.

GF: Uh-huh, I believe so. I think you're always gonna have your families who are gonna want -- plus we're very personal with our families, and we probably take that extra step to provide for our families, whereas I think if you go to your Forest Lawn it's not, it's not as personal. You don't always work with the same person. So I think a lot of our families found, find value in going to someone who really listens to them and takes care of their needs and stays with them, so we would try and have our counselors staying with a family from the beginning to the -- of course, sometimes he may do two families who both want their service at the same day, same time so it's impossible, but we try and have the same counselor stay with the family throughout the whole process.

JG: How does the process work when someone contacts you?

GF: As far as assigning?

JG: Well just how does, from beginning to end, if one of my family members have passed away and I need your services and I contact you, how does it all unfold?

GF: We would set up an appointment with the family, either at their residence or at the mortuary at the family's convenience, and then we would assign a counselor to that family, so we'll meet with them and go over the arrangements, what their desires are, whether they want to have private service, public service, memorial service, traditional service with church where and we would take care of contacting the church, setting up the arrangements, submitting the obituary and all this, printing the programs and all of that. And then attend the funeral and once the funeral's over then we would continue on to the cemetery to having the burial and completing with the burial.

JG: So now you have your nephew who has entered into the business. Did you, what kind of conversation took place as he was thinking about whether or not he wanted to do this? Did you sit down with him at any point?

GF: A couple times, yes, I did. He's been there for over ten years. He graduated Cal State Fullerton with a degree in business marketing, and I guess there wasn't a lot available for him. And so he would work at the mortuary part time when he was going to school, too, and I told him, "Hey, if you want to work you can," so he decided to do it. So after a couple years I said, "Well, what do you think? Do you like working here? Do you think you could do this, take over?" And he says, "Yeah, I think so." So he got his feet wet and made the determination on his own that it was something he could do as a career, and he's very good, for his age, for thirty years old. I wish I was that rooted and mature as he is, but even at thirty I was still fartin' around, so I, I'm very proud of him 'cause he's very focused.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.