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BN: And I just want to end with asking you about going back to the Japanese American National Museum, and, I guess, how do you, how did it change you, do you think, being involved there for so long?

HK: Oh, it changed me because now I feel like I'm a lot more Japanese American, whereas before, I thought probably just American. When I was growing up, I was much more American than Japanese. I did not like going to Japanese language school. When we went to any Buddhist ceremony I didn't know what was going on and didn't care what was going on. I don't understand the language, so I still don't know exactly what's going on, but I still appreciate what's happening. I believe I'm much more Japanese than many years ago.

BN: How long do you think you'll stay at JANM?

HK: How long? I'm eighty-seven now, so I don't know how long I'm... I might die in another couple of years. [Laughs] Right now, I don't know, it's still pleasant, and if they still want me to hang around, I do that taiko demo or whatever, and help out with other activities at the museum. But no, I don't know how long.

BN: Anything else?

EA: This is a little silly, but can you tell Brian your most recent special performance that you did for the holiday party? You had to fill in, tell him about being "Shogun Santa."

HK: Oh. Well, at this past, every year, the museum has a holiday party, and part of that is to have somebody dress up as Santa Claus and give out gifts to some of the kids and grandkids of some of the museum's staff. And it turns out that Rodney Kageyama, very local person who has been our museum Santa Claus for several years, but he passed on about a week before the party. And so now the museum has to pick up a Santa, and so they ended up picking me for some reason. But anyway, I ended up being Santa, and they had this Santa outfit which did not fit, it was terrible, the beard didn't fit, didn't stay on. It was terrible. So what am I gonna do? Well, I said, because I like taiko, I'm gonna bring taiko in. So instead of just coming out and walking onto the stage, I came in from the back end of the big area with a drum. So I'm banging on the drum coming in and saying, "Hello, Merry Christmas, Ho, ho, ho." And then wandered up to the stage and then ended up giving gifts to the kids.

BN: I think that's a good note to end on, good image. Thank you very much.

HK: Okay, well, thank you for having me.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.