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TI: Before we move on, I forgot to ask this question. Were there any interesting stories that your dad told about just growing up in Hawaii? I know he was in his younger years, but was there something that he would often tell people about something that happened in Hawaii?

HY: Well, he had many friends in Hawaii. I mean, even when he was, we would go back and visit Hawaii when he was in his seventies, he would still have childhood friends that he would look up. But even though he might not have been in Hawaii for fifty years, he would still have his friends there.

TI: And when you saw your dad in Maui with his childhood friends, did his demeanor change in any way? Did you see him in a different way when he was in Hawaii versus when he was, like, in Watsonville?

HY: Yeah, I think he did. He would sort of change. He would kind of talk... since he went to Berkeley and all that, I mean, no slang, he would talk very good, very properly, proper English. But when he would go back to the islands, he would slip back into talking more...

TI: More pidgin?

HY: Some. Not too much, but some. I mean, you could see that he was different than, you know, what I was used to growing up with him here.

TI: Did that in any way surprise... the reason I ask is it's funny, in Seattle I kind of grew up in what we called the Rainier Valley, which was a very diverse community. I grew up with friends on the street, and so I used a lot of slang when I was growing up. And then later on I had kids, but I remember my kids, I was down at the Pike Place Market, saw one of my old schoolmates, and you know, you just sort of go back into that slang. And my kids' eyes just got really big and their mouths kind of dropped, and they said, "Dad, we never heard you talk like that." [Laughs]

HY: That's right, yeah. Yeah, same thing.

TI: Okay, good.

HY: One of the things, although he was Christian, a very strong Christian, he would talk about seeing ghosts in Hawaii. I guess there were, when he was growing up, they lived near a cemetery, and he would talk about that. To me, I never heard him talking about those before.

TI: And how would he describe them? Were they, like, evil, or they were just ghosts and there were good ghosts and bad ghosts?

HY: Just spirits and ghosts, not good or bad.

TI: That's interesting. I interviewed other Niseis who were older, years ago, and they would talk about ghosts also, cemeteries, these lights that they would see, and usually around cemeteries.

HY: That's right.

TI: That was interesting.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.