<Begin Segment 13>

BF: It must have been kind of unusual when a non-Nikkei came into the store.

TM: Yeah. At first it was. But toward the end, I mean toward the end like, about the time -- oh, that's the other thing -- my father wanted us to go into the World's Fair. And I asked him why and he said, "Well, the World's Fair comes around only once every ten years," in those days. Now it comes every year or something. And he felt, I guess maybe he had heard about the Yukon Exposition in the Chicago World's Fair, and he thought this was a chance in a lifetime. So when the World's Fair was slated to come to Seattle, he wanted to put a store in, so... I don't know how I got talked into putting the store in. But he died that year, too. But, it was his idea. And looking back, I think he was now getting ready to outreach a little bit or, whatever reason. But the World's Fair naturally was not geared for the Japanese community, but we did very well in relative terms. But, having said that, the philosophy of our store at the World's Fair was not to gouge the people, but kinda promote our business and sell and promote the products at competitive prices. So, for those reasons I think we did well. And there was a successful venture, which expanded our customer base I think. And I don't know --

BF: That was like in the '60s?

TM: '60s, yeah.

BF: Yeah.

TM: Like you say, 1940s probably it was very unusual to have non-Nikkei that were -- if they were neighbors, that was a different story, but for somebody from outside the Japanese, Chinatown was somewhat unusual. But it was building up, because also, as you know, the Japanese food started to become viewed as health food, especially tofu. So those things, those things you don't foresee, but, so there's been a lot of outside influence that just, here again, lucky, being at the right place at the right time.

BF: But at, in the 1940s again, or 1940s to '50s, your father was still had this notion of at some point going back to Japan?

TM: Yeah. But to contradict that, I, now that I'm thinking about it, he did participate in the trade fairs, well not trade fairs, but the Japanese government used to bring, and he used to put in a booth. And looking back now I guess he was maybe trying to promote, probably primarily the Japanese product to the general public. But maybe trying to promote his own business, but, so, somewhat a contradiction in that sense. Maybe he thought he wasn't, but in some way he, he took an active interest in participating in the trade fairs. And maybe that was the reason why he was also -- the people running that, those trade fairs were naturally became very involved in the World Trade Fair, I mean World what -- 1962, what is it? What am I saying? The World...

BF: Expo, Expo?

TM: Expo. Yeah. So they were the same people, so he probably got talked into it. And before we knew, he brought back a contract. He said, "Well, we got this much space, do something with it." [Laughs]

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.