Densho Digital Archive - Yukiko Miyake Interview (denshovh-myukiko-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

SY: So gossip traveled fast.

YM: Oh, yeah. In those days, well, I suppose it does nowadays too, but in those days it was all Japanese. Main Street was all Japanese and I think Jackson was all Japanese. Yeah. It was... I don't think we were so apart. We are always so close when we went to the -- every Saturday or Friday, we went to the Japanese bath, and we meet the same people every week. We got to know them and they were, we became friends. Yeah. It was very interesting because we had -- we don't have that any more because we all have a bathtub, jacuzzi, and things like that in our home now. But in those days, we all went to the bath, to this great big bath.

SY: What was that like?

YM: Bathhouse.

SY: What was the bathhouse like?

YM: What was it like? I think I don't know how much we paid, but I remember my grandmother paying for me and for herself, and then they gave you one big towel or maybe -- I don't know how many. Two big towels and one face cloth. And we went into the bath and she would bow and I would say hello because the same ladies were there, and they would talk and she would wash me.

SY: The lady of the bathhouse would wash you?

YM: No. No. My grandmother washed me.

SY: Oh, your grandmother would wash you.

YM: The lady of the bathhouse would never -- unless you asked for special, but I don't think so. I don't know that.

SY: So your grandmother would wash you?

YM: Uh-huh. And then I would soak and I come out and wipe myself, and I wait until she was finished and we used to -- I don't know. There used to be a Coca Cola or Pepsi or something, cream, outside of this bathhouse that we could buy. I don't know how much it was.

SY: So how old were you when you used to go to the bathhouse?

YM: Gee, must have been three, four, five.

SY: And then as you got older, did you continue to go on your own?

YM: Yeah.

SY: Just by yourself?

YM: I never went on my own. My grandma always went with me.