<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Interesting, okay, so we talked about school, still you had some free time in the plantations, what would you do?

YI: Oh yeah, I was a Boy Scout and I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed my scout. I never moved up in rank but I was in scouting until I went to Mid-Pacific. So, what, you can become a Boy Scout at about what, ten or eleven I think, so I was, you know, four, five years. We had a good bunch of kids and this was the same bunch that, you know, we played football, baseball.

TI: Now, did you guys ever get in trouble? Did you guys do things that were mischievous at the plantation?

YI: Yeah, plenty but, you know, not where you be charged for crime, you know. Some of the, what you call, the traditional holidays and events, I remember like in Halloween, right, in a plantation, you know, I mean, nobody going to give you candy, they'll give you banana or something from the backyard. But we used to go and roll the garbage can. [Laughs] The thing is that we don't do it in our neighborhood, we did things like that. And we're always looking for something to eat for one thing. I tell people that the taro... okay, taro is grown in the water, and below where I lived there was a pumping station that pumped the water from the... there was a huge spring, there was spring water plus the running stream, they would pump the water up into the irrigation field. And then they need somebody to, what you call, maintain the pump, you know, to set it off or whatever it is. And we used to go and steal the taro and then we learned how not to steal the whole plant, but you know, we would dig in and take the bottom half of the taro and not disturb the plant. And we used to boil it in a gallon can and then... I mean, we know everybody in the camp, I mean, so we would go to the sugar mill and ask for raw sugar, the brown sugar. And then the sugar was in a, they were putting in a burlap bag, and they would sew the top and the cone from the sewing thread, they would fill that cone with raw sugar for us. And then we would dip the cooked taro into the thing and eat. Well, today it's stealing but we were going to steal chicken eggs, right? Because everybody raises chickens and we don't take... we don't clean up the thing, we'd take one from each nest. And there are some bad mistakes because we didn't know that some were being incubated so after we boiled that thing, the embryo was in it. [Laughs] So we had that kind of experience.

TI: So it sounded like the boys, you would just get together and do a little camp out with food, to make you own food and have that. When you were a Boy Scout did you go camping outside?

YI: Yes.

TI: And where were some places you would go camping?

YI: We used to like going camping Waimea Falls. But before we had to kind of hike in, you know, they didn't have roads there. But again you see, the plantation provided transportation for us, you know, when we go camping, we go hiking, and we would camp, you know, Waimea Falls, Hanauma Bay, those days they allowed us to. Hanauma Bay was nice, real nice.

TI: Now how about festivals or community events like, whether it's New Year's Day or Bon Odori, did they have things like that?

YI: Yeah, they had, you know, because we had two temples, right. So we had Bon Odori and we used to dance, we used to dance. Let's see now, and then the Obon is usually, all the time it's in the summer. We had Obon at (Waipahu Hongwanji Mission) and (Waipahu) Soto Mission.

TI: Is it similar to today where this lanterns and singing?

YI: It was even more elaborate before.

TI: It was more elaborate?

YI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody wear, well, yukata or, you know, that hapi coat. And, well, I haven't been to one in a long time except this one in Aiea where I live but the space is very limited. Because in the limited space that they have, they built new buildings, so when they put the yagura, oh, man, they must have less than 200 square feet to dance around the yagura, you know.

TI: So this in when you were a kid or is this now?

YI: (Growing up, now with limited space).

TI: Yeah, you had more room before.

YI: People would come from... there used to be fights... you know, the older kids for some reason, you know, those are the older kids just about the stage where they started to drink beer and stuff like that. So the kids that come from maybe, say Aiea, they'd come to Waipahu, they get a good licking but same thing when Waipahu kids go to Aiea, they get good licking. Not to the extent that, you know, that they needed to be hospitalized. And also as kids we could follow them so we could see them fighting. When we grew up, I guess, everybody was more civilized and things like that didn't happen. Yeah, we used to follow the older (boys).

TI: Interesting. And how about like kenjinkai picnics, did you have things like that, you know, for Hiroshima?

YI: Yeah, plantation... well, I'm talking about, you know, Oahu Sugar Company, they had a... they develop a beach park for the employees which is a right across from where (Hawaiian Electric Co., Kahe Plant) is, you know this island?

TI: No.

YI: Okay, it's on the leeward side, Kahe Electric Plant is between, well, the beach is between Kahe Electric Plant and the Kolina (Resort). They had fenced that area there, they even built toilets and then we're able to use it. I think on like Fourth of July or something like that they provided transportation. But again, you see, I guess by today we might call it segregation but they had for the general employees and they had another one for the supervisors. Same thing in the camp, they social hall for the, so-called whites and they had their own tennis court. And there were a lot of bachelors in the supervisory, and they all seemed to have come from the southern part of (mainland) because that's where, you know, they had the farming knowledge. So they had social hall quarters for the bachelor supervisors but then they also had a social hall for the employees too, for the Japanese and maybe we used to go and see a movie once a month, open air theater, you know, we'd go and take our goza and reserve our spot and it provided a social hall for Japanese.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.