Densho Digital Archive - Tomio Moriguchi Interview IV

<Begin Segment 1>

[Ed. note: Uwajimaya's fish and seafood kitchen]

TM: Each of our retail store is, in terms of supermarkets, pretty small. But they're 25,000 square feet, approximately, and this store is approximately that size first floor. And in today's supermarket world they're about 40, 50,000. Like Safeway and Albertsons. But for Asian store I guess we're okay. But that's one of the reasons we're moving to a new store. Because we will have approximately twice the first floor of our Seattle store right now. But it's -- we have the fish department which is probably a percentage bigger than most typical supermarkets. And we have our fish and produce and everything else. It's pretty standard supermarket operation.

BF: Uh-huh. Now is there, what's the next largest competitor in the Asian grocery retailing? Would it be in Hawaii?

TM: Oh, no, no. You know, in Kent they built the Great Wall...

BF: Oh the Great... mall. Yeah.

TM: There's a branch, 99. I'm guessing there's 25, 30,000 square feet. The grocery part, I'm guessing. Or maybe a little less. But they're a good size operation. If you go to Los Angeles, they have three or four of these stores, about this size, if not larger. San Jose has one, and Chicago and New Jersey and places like that have large ones.

BF: Okay, so let's go out to the left.

[Interruption]

[Ed. note: shots of man cutting sashimi]

<Begin Segment 2>

[Ed. note: seafood display cooler]

TM: -- it's self service.

BF: Uh-huh.

TM: And even the meat used to be that way, but more and more people want self service.

BF: They just want to come in and grab it.

TM: Yeah. And then not this site, but more and more sashimi ready to eat...

BF: Do you find that over the years the type of, the type of seafood that you carry is getting less exotic, as you sort of have to...

TM: Oh, it's probably more exotic, because...

BF: More exotic?

TM: ...because you could fly it in from all over the world.

BF: What about the customers? What, are their tastes getting more sophisticated?

TM: I think the customer base is just expanding so there's different needs and different interests. I haven't really thought of it but I doubt if the average person is more exotic. It's just that we have people coming here that are used to different things.

BF: Ah. More new immigrant groups?

TM: Right. We have people like from East India, and Pakistan-type people, and they call themselves "White Russians." And they were always around but there seems to be a larger number. And they seem to venture into our stores more and more.

BF: And do they just request certain things and that's how it happens, or do you go out and investigate sort of, large groups?

TM: We don't have the room to sell what they, we think they want or need. They seem to come to us because we already have what they want. And we haven't been very good at -- oh, to answer that, we're not catering to them, because first of all, we don't know how.

BF: Right.

TM: Number two, we don't have the space. Korean food is one good example. We should have more variety of Korean things, but we don't from a space point of view. Few years ago, we didn't know what they want. Now we know what they want, but the space is limited.

BF: Uh-huh. I notice a lot of the employees are pan-Asian. I mean, it's not just, of course, Japanese. Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asians. So do you ever get the employees making suggestions on things to carry?

TM: Well, but like I say, we found that these people come because basically they like things Japanese, or some of the traditional things we have, and so... and fortunately, not all the -- there are some core food and produce items that seems to be somewhat universal. But you can't take that lightly. You find that it's not quite true, and yet, you know, you take lemon, for example. It's pretty -- and there's a few other greens that are fairly universal but our Beaverton store seems to have been gaining reputation as a good produce. So we've been attracting, like I say, people from Mideast, India, Pakistan, I think, and countries around there. It's amazing when you go down there, they come in shawls, and they dress so differently, it's interesting. We don't have that in the Seattle store so much, but hopefully in the future when we expand we'll have more. Of course, in Seattle, there are stores that cater to Indians and so, they have specialty stores. Probably more so than smaller communities. But fortunately, also an example, the soyu -- Soya milk?

BF: Uh-huh.

TM: It's viewed as fresh, and it's also viewed if you go to a good Japanese or good Chinese store, it's there. So people looking for Soya milk come to our type of store.

BF: Uh-huh. Because so many Asians are lactose intolerant.

TM: Yeah. It's kind of known that a good supermarket like Asian supermarket carries not only different sizes, but different brands, so one starts to feed on the other. So if, even if you're American, you're looking for Soya milk, you'll come to a store like ours.

BF: Right.

TM: So that's an example of what happens.

BF: Where's the satsumaage we saw being made?

TM: Oh. Let's see, where is our brand? Oh, here's some of it. That's not correct. Where is that?

<Begin Segment 3>

TM: Also, if you look at the produce, well, if you want to. It's quite exotic in the sense that some of the supermarkets have it now but you have things like sugar cane, durian, and I don't know what... this kind of fruit. I think it's jackfruit --

BF: What is that? Kiwano?

TM: But the point is, we have this year-round. So we have customers that just expect it, to have it. And if you go to any Asian market like Hong Kong or Singapore, these are just standard stuff. And it might be exotic in a big supermarket, but for us it's just day-to-day stuff.

BF: What, how many of this, of the more exotic stuff have you tried yourself?

TM: Oh, I've tried little bit of most. And when you go traveling in Asia you get it.

BF: Yeah.

TM: I don't know the names. Some are like jackfruits, it's seasonal too. Even in the tropic climate. Mangoes and papayas.

BF: What's the blue light for?

TM: I think that's a fly catcher.

BF: Ohhh.

[Interruption]

TM: We just have this much general, well, to go to some... typical supermarket you just have a little bit, but... this is a very good example of kind of a universal product for most Asians.

BF: Uh-huh. Mmm, all the different Asian groups.

TM: Daikon, and certain -- types of nappa are also kind of universally accepted.

<Begin Segment 4>

[Ed. note: walking towards noodle aisle]

TM: So the point is, most Asians eat bok choy, daikon...

BF: And I would assume, more and more non-Asians...

TM: Oh yeah, yeah.

BF: Are starting to --

TM: That's given. If people are looking for that kind of product, they'll come to our type of store.

BF: Uh-huh.

TM: I knew the number, but one time -- I forgot, we had fifty or a hundred different kinds of noodles, instant noodles. Yeah.

BF: [Laughs] Ramen type?

TM: Yeah.

BF: Uh-huh.

[Shots of noodle aisle]

TM: Right here. I don't know how many we have but I -- this is all noodles and instant noodles. And I suppose if we had twice this much space we could probably have a third again different brands and sty -- types and sizes and so these are both size noodles of some kind. And this is the advantage of what we feel that -- I feel that will continue to provide a niche for our customers. Because very few supermarkets gonna have this variety.

BF: Uh-huh. When you look at over a hundred different types of noodles, do you ever think about what your dad would think?

TM: Yeah. I think, first of all, they didn't know about this instant stuff. [Laughs]

BF: [Laughs] Would he be amazed?

TM: Yeah, I think so because, you know, in our old days you had somen and ramen -- I mean somen and soba and a few others. Hiya mugi. But it's amazing. And here again, I'm not, gourmet but there are certain chow mein type noodles that most Asian people will use one way or the other. They might use it differently, but these so-called chow mein noodles are pretty popular. I don't know about the somen and things. But chow-mein noodles -- and then the rice sticks, that sai fun type, in one form or another, most different Asian groups use that. Mai fun, sai fun.

BF: But your father would also be really, he'd be really proud, don't you think? About how well the store's doing?

TM: Yeah, I think, yeah. My mother was very proud.

BF: Uh-huh.

TM: This, this is a... people of all different Asian groups use bean threads I guess... rice noodles, I guess they call it. Just like anything else, though, when you get down to it, little difference. [Laughs]

BF: When folks come in and they don't know exactly what they're looking for -- especially maybe Caucasian or non-Asians -- do they feel intimidated? Do they ask for help from the staff?

TM: I'm sure at first, they are. We try to accommodate, and we have had programs from time to time where somebody will wear a happi coat and try to help. But to find good people that they -- if somebody comes in with a menu we try to help them out. The first time it is intimidating. 'Cause I've been to other, Indian stores or something. It is intimidating. It looks kind of interesting but a lot of it is written in foreign language which is not supposed to be legal, but... so it is intimidating. That's one of our complaints, too. Some products that come straight from Japan, they might put a label on here, but the rest of it is written in Japanese. And the label is very simple. So unless you know what this product is, or unless you read Japanese, you really don't know how to use it.

BF: Right, right.

TM: Yeah. And this is, that's the same kind of experience I've had when I go into some other, non-Japanese or even Chinese -- I can't read the, I can't even read Japanese. But if something is little different, it is intimidating. But conversely, there's a lot of people get challenged by that, too. They bring it home and try it out.

BF: They like the idea of being adventurous?

TM: I'm guessing most of this rice stick in one form or another, it can be substituted.

BF: Uh-huh. Yeah.

TM: My brother, one of the reasons we grew in the form of Seasia, is we were one of the early people to promote cup noodles and instant ramen to the supermarket. I mean, my brother in Sea -- Uwajimaya, Seasia brand. These always sold -- well not this cup so much -- but these packaged ramen?

BF: Uh-huh.

TM: They were very popular in Asian stores, and it was just given. But my brother started to sell it to the supermarket. And it took a long time, but... so we had a very good relation, until they got very large. But when they were just trying to break the American market, my brother was one of those willing to go to the supermarkets.

BF: So really, he really helped get Asian products into the mainstream stores around here generally?

TM: Right. In, well California always had it, and East Coast is slowly, slowly getting it. Few years ago, if you went to a supermarket in East Coast, Boston or New York, very little Asian stuff. Now it's slowly expanding.

BF: Interesting. Because the, they're getting more Asians? Or because people are just, their tastes are...

TM: Probably a combination. Probably it takes both. You can't have just one or the other, I think.

<Begin Segment 5>

[Discussion of number of siblings currently working in Uwajimaya]

TM: There's six out of the seven. And my sister Hisako teaches at the Seattle Community College. There's, my mother had seven children, and six of us are still in the business.

BF: Can you kind of give us a quick run-down of what they all do?

TM: Oh, my oldest brother who's about ready to retire is in the retail. And then my next brother -- well, then my oldest sister who's older than -- she does the non-food buying, she goes to Japan and buys the dishware, non-food stuff. Primarily to sell in Uwajimaya, but for a few restaurant customer type. And then myself. When my father passed away and I came back to the company, we had to incorporate, my oldest brother said, "Well, you take the presidency," because we had to have that when you incorporate. And that's right. So I been kind of looking at the overall business, plus the real estate part, developments and things. Then my next brother, Mori, who kind of came back from the army and took over the wholesale division, and made that... and we call that the distribution business. Including the wholesale to the, big supermarket wholesale to the restaurants and smaller Asian stores. And then now with the production of food, food line that you saw, Kustom Foods...

BF: Kustom Foods.

TM: ...he's been in, he's in charge of all that. Plus, the growth right now is in our Sun Luck brand, we're distributing that as brokers throughout the country. So we think that's a potential. But it's also low margin and takes a lot of work. But I think once we, if, he's confident once we get it going, we're working with a major chain. The second largest grocery chain in the United States, we're trying to convince them to take forty or hundred items that goes into their catalog. And then any store within that chain could then order it. But it's, it doesn't happen overnight, it takes a lot of work.

BF: So did we cover everyone?

TM: Oh, excuse me. [Laughs] Then Toshi -- then the next sister, who's Hisako, is a school teacher at the community college. And Toshi is our comptrol. He's kind of into the finance and comptrolling part. Then my youngest sister Tomoko is in charge of the three retail stores. In the, Tomoko came back after she had went to the bay area and married a San Francisco person. After the girls got into about high school, I guess she wanted to move back with the family and with my mother, and she came back. When the kids start to, probably were in high school, she said, "What am I gonna do," she came back to work, and before we knew it, she was kind of running the retail stores. [Laughs] Which was great because it freed me up to do more of the real estate development.

BF: So how many, how often do you meet as a family to discuss...?

TM: The five or six of us meet almost two or three times a month.

BF: Uh-huh. And other than that, do you find yourself running into each other very often? Is it just sort of, "Hi, bye," in the...

[Ed. note: walking towards the deli]

TM: Well, just like any family, when there's seven of us, there's two or three that seem to kind of run into each other, same circle of friends. And we try not to talk business but we all were together for Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, in one form or the other. Christmas weekend we were together about four times: Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, this and that. And then my oldest brother's wife Carol was born on Christmas Day. And my wife was born on December 23rd, so there was a birthday party, a Christmas Eve party. Which was all nice, you know. There's a lot of informal gathering, too.

BF: Wow. That's spending a lot of time together.

TM: Yeah. Probably less so now because each of us have our children. But when the kids were young, we used to meet all the time. Especially around my mother.

BF: And she's at Keiro.

TM: Yes. But before that she had her own house.

<Begin Segment 6>

[Ed. note: shots of deli]

BF: This is, this is where back when she was working in the store, she'd cook meals for the workers?

TM: No, not here. This is prior, at --

BF: The smaller store.

TM: Yeah. Main street store. Soon as we got here we said, no we can't do that.

BF: Too many people. [Laughs]

TM: Well she insisted on making sushi in the back here. So this is, when we started, then... when we started to make more and more take-out food, then that's when we converted the 5th Avenue part to the deli kitchen. Actually when we were making sushi here, we were making the satsumaage and things back there. And then when we moved the production operation to the facility, Kustom Foods, because Kustom Foods used to be our wholesale warehouse, we outgrew that. So we moved to where we are now, from 30,000 to 80,000. So that's when we converted to, half of the, our old warehouse was to production. I think we used to make all these, too, but we buy it now.

BF: Oh really?

TM: We used to make these hum bows in the back there.

BF: Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that you bought them, now.

TM: Well, we probably do. I'm not sure, but that was one of the other reasons why we built that kitchen, was because we used to make hum bow and satsumaage, and those things.

BF: At lunch time this place is just packed.

TM: Oh yeah, it's pretty good, so here again, our expanded store will have much more of this.

BF: This is one of the areas that's gonna be, really larger?

TM: Yeah, especially the seating area. This will be about two or three times the size of this.

<Begin Segment 7>

[Ed. note: standing on vantage point overlooking the store]

TM: ...we built that facility with the second floor, we moved the office over there.

BF: How do you make the, how are the decisions made to expand? Is it just something that...

TM: Well, it's kind of give and take, you kind of know you need to get some ideas, talk to the family and then if it seems feasible you bring in the architects and things like that.

BF: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

TM: There's an interesting story, when we moved to this building, this used to be a parts -- automobile and marine parts building, this building here. And it was owned by a trust. And when the trust had this lease with the people that they built the building for, they were starting to argue about the rent for the new lease period. And -- well, I don't know -- one way or another we heard about it, so we made an offer. And the trustee was so sick and tired of the existing tenant because they just couldn't get along, so they gave us a chance to rent it. Pretty fair price. And then, so when we took it over, we added this wing and we ran the business for a while, and then we just kept busting at the seams, so we took over that other corner and expanded. In the meantime, it was in trust and we were leasing it, but the trustee through, came to realize they had to spend a lot of money because the building was getting old, or parts of the basement, and they chose not to. So they went to court and the court allowed us to buy it while it was a trust. So you have to be lucky. Things just happen.

BF: When big decisions have to be made, like to buy property, to expand, do you find that the family is usually of one mind? Or, how does that usually work?

TM: Yeah, maybe not one mind, but we talk it over, formally, informally, and keep talking it over. And usually consensus.

BF: Informally? You mean like at the family gatherings? "Hey, want to expand?" [Laughs]

TM: Probably. And when I say "informally," it's not like you're taking minutes or anything like that. But it's, so far it's been pretty straightforward. The problem now is going to be, there'll be different options as you expand. When you're growing, there's limited options, so you kind of grab what's there. But in the future it'll be interesting.

BF: Hmm. Choices to be made. What's one of the bigger choices that...?

TM: Well, one big choice was to get out of the wholesale division and sell that. And then, we ventured into Beaverton, that wasn't the most popular but we were successful there, so do we go into another city, do we expand what we have. You know, those are the choices. It's always said that you're gonna always have more ideas than money.

BF: Uh-huh. Is it unusual, the way -- 'cause you've had a lot of experience with other businesses, other organizations. Do you think the way Uwajimaya's run with almost the entire family in really key roles, is that really unusual? Seems unusual.

TM: In the old days it wasn't unusual. Because families always in farms and especially greenhouses type where they needed a lot of, used to have a lot of family-type enterprises. Unusual may not be, it's kind of rare. First of all, not everybody, not every family has businesses, number one. You know, to start with. And I guess I would think it's fairly rare for family business to -- well, we're the second generation, maybe third, if it goes on to the third or fourth, it is unusual in any circumstance, I guess. I think my observation is if it's harder for just two siblings. But if you have five or six it's easier.

BF: Why?

TM: Well, if you have two, it's either yes or no, one against the other. But if you have four or five or six, then it's kind of a political, critical mass-type, starts to emerge. And then, also, the other thing is if you become large enough, then there's certain elements of a business that people could take what they feel comfortable or they know something about. Where if you're smaller and if you're just two, it starts to get complicated. So it's harder to divide responsibilities, or you may end up with something you really don't like to do. Where if you have enough people, maybe. But it's pretty complicated. I think it's a combination of our parents encouraging us to do what we think is right, and pretty supportive. My mother never -- one thing we have to say, she went out of her way not to show any favoritism. So she treated us pretty equally, so that helped. And it's just the circumstance. I don't think anybody knew our business would grow this fast. When you're on the upswing it's awfully easy. If you start to plateau and go down, it's a different story.

BF: But every -- but six out of seven stayed attracted to the business.

TM: And actually my sister who is not in the business, during college she worked very hard. In fact she ran the Seattle Center World's Fair booth during the summer she was in school. So it's not that she doesn't like business. I think she just enjoys her specialty which is pattern-making and community college. She teaches sewing and manufacturing of clothing. So she's fairly highly specialized in her field, and well-respected, I think.

BF: What do you think is responsible for the rest of the siblings still being so interested in the business? Is it just because it's doing well, and it's, everyone kind of gets to do a certain area and make it their own?

TM: Yeah, probably that, and a combination of we grow -- having grown up on it, and grown up in it. And like I say, my youngest sister married a very nice person from San Francisco, he's an engineer working as a civilian for the naval, and when they found an opening in Bremerton, so they moved up. So it's lot of those little fortunate things. So she wanted to come back to be with the family and mother, and he was able to find a good, comparable job at Bremerton, he was working down in the bay area in naval engineering. So things like that happen. And I think when she moved up, my other sister Hisako was living in Oakland, they decided to move up too. So before you knew it, the whole seven siblings were back together in Seattle. Actually, we live only, maybe fifteen minutes away, especially where my mother used to live, near 12th Avenue. I don't think any of us live more than ten, fifteen minutes away from her.

BF: So a big attraction is family?

TM: Well, probably. Probably we wouldn't admit that. [Laughs] But it's comfortable, family, yeah.

BF: What, now, we've been mentioning that the store's expanding, and this location will -- it's not just expanding, you're moving.

TM: Yes.

BF: So, what's going to be hard about leaving this place? Anything?

TM: Well, it might be hard. We've been here thirty years, but then I haven't been here the last six or seven so maybe it won't be so hard. But it is an old building. And not only is the building old, it wasn't designed for the operation it's being used for now. If you can see, the equipment not only needs refurbishing, but the state-of-the-art in the last ten, fifteen years, has...

BF: Uh-huh, really changed.

TM: ...changed. So, it's probably a good time.

BF: Will the new store still have this homey feel to it?

TM: That will be a challenge. My gut feeling, it'll take a couple years for us to get it back. Because it's going to be pretty fresh and new, and we won't have these little signs and little things hanging right away. We'll do our best, but you're talking 50,000 square feet, and it's...

BF: It's a lot of space.

TM: Yeah. I hope the customers will -- I don't know how you say it -- forgive us or work with us to make it homey. [Laughs] But it's the product and the people that makes it homey, too. Although decor is important. But ultimately, without customers, you're not gonna have a homey place.

BF: Right. Feel kinda lonely.

TM: And if you don't have the product they want... and as you know, most of the products like the instant noodles and the rice cakes, it's pretty colorful. And the produce department is pretty colorful, and the fish, too. Some of the red fish and the... it's pretty colorful.

BF: Yeah, and a lot of the homey-ness is some of the little gadgets that you can find here.

TM: And it's gonna take a couple years to just kind of find the niche, I think. But you know, surprisingly I think, we attract a lot of non-Japanese customers because we are clean, we try to keep our store clean. Not too clean, but at least we try to keep the aisles clean, and somewhat orderly. And I think people appreciate that.

BF: Uh-huh. I think that's very true.

<Begin Segment 8>

[Ed. note: standing out in the parking lot, looking up at new Fujisada condos]

TM: We bought this sliver of land thirty years ago or something, 60 x 120. And it was a parking lot, and we bought it just because it was kind of available, and we used it for parking. And we started to get offers for the property, so we said, oh gee, if it's worth something to somebody, it must be worth something. And then, coupled with that, I like real estate development. And also we start to think that a lot of the housing in this area is subsidized or low income or... we said, you know, for this area to become -- I don't know how you say it -- more viable, then you have to provide moderate or higher-end income. So we talked to a couple of developers and they invariably wanted it either subsidized or small housing units. And get a lot of density, because that's how you make the money. And we said, no that's not what we want. So we decided to put in twenty-five kind of luxurious, more upscale housing, and sell it as condos. Then make big bucks, and then get rid of the property, but also to see if there's a market. Because we were in the best position to gamble or to risk, see if that high end was there. Because we could always sell down, lose money, and then sell something. But, so we, it took us a long time. We kept going to the bank, and they said, "Oh yeah, we'll lend you money, but fifty percent," or you know. And finally the housing market in general in the Seattle area, it became good. Number two, there was a lady that was working for the mortgage company, that became very active in the community serving on different boards. She became very convinced that this was a viable area, and when we talked to her, she was able to convince her company to give us a standard loan. Nothing favorable, but at least a standard ratio loan. So we took that money, and we spent a little bit more than we wanted to, so but this is the product...

BF: So you feel that part of the future of the ID relies on bringing little higher-end...

TM: Market rate housing.

BF: Yeah.

TM: And people -- the other element with a condo is ownership. If you own property and you live here twenty-four hours, you tend to hopefully keep a better eye on it and if there's -- and this area has it's bad elements, but hopefully if there's enough people living here and keep calling the police, and putting political pressure, and then if also, that type of element you hope won't come around to a place where there's people living with higher income and things like that.

BF: Is it similar to like what is occurring in the Belltown area and other areas?

TM: Definitely. We're probably, twenty years later. And fortunately, hopefully we don't have the same learning curve and the economic problems they had over there. But definitely we're benefiting from the boom in the Belltown area. The downtown living interest...

BF: Right. Becoming much more desirable and reasonable.

TM: But, like I say, this is not a new idea. Five, six years ago banks, very courteous, but they're saying we'll lend you forty percent, or sixty -- fifty percent or something. But they weren't willing to talk to us as a normal...

BF: So in your mind, do you think it's a gamble? Or do you think it's a pretty sure thing?

TM: Well, it was a risk, but the risk was not, I was confident we'd never lose everything. But the risk of not to make money, it would have been more profitable to sell the land. But we learned a lot, and we feel we have a good product.

BF: And the name Fujisada?

TM: Oh, Fujisada. You know, my father's name is Fujimatsu, and my mother's name is Sadako. So my oldest sister, who by the way was raised in Japan, one time she was doodling and she says, "Oh..." -- and those are the informal times you're having dinner, and we're talking this and that -- she says, "Oh, why don't we mention it, Fujisada."

<Begin Segment 9>

[Ed. note: standing outside on one of the balconies of the Fujisada condominiums, looking down on the construction site for the new Uwajimaya building]

TM: The new store, you know, we bought this one block just south of us, one square block about twelve years ago. It was subject to a lease, and then when that lease ended for that General Motors franchise, we told them we'll take it over. And we start to plan over and over but we couldn't make the parking in the new store work out. So we started to then see if the other land was available, the block south of us. And so we were able to acquire that. Then we started to say, well it would make sense to vacate Lane Street, to make it two contiguous block. And that's why this design came about. But that's where also the, some of the community members got a little excited, and felt that we shouldn't have the Lane Street vacated. But economically, it would have been very difficult for us to do it otherwise.

BF: So what will it look like? What will it have? It'll be retail, or...

TM: This building that you see right now will have 220 parking stalls underneath, about 60,000 -- 66,000 square feet of retail on the first street level, which 50,000 will be taken by Uwajimaya, and then on top of that, Bruce Lorig Associates will build 176 units of market rate apartments. So we don't own the apartments. We sold them the air rights to this.

BF: Okay. What other, so what other retail tenants do you envision?

TM: Well, the Kinokuniya book store will be a major tenant. We'll have four or five smaller Asian take-out type of small restaurants. Right now we're talking to a Korean restaurant and a Filipino restaurant, we'll have a coffee place. We'll have a major bank as a tenant, and a few other smaller stores.

BF: How will this change, will this double, essentially? This retail store?

TM: For Uwajimaya, we will double our current first floor retail, approximately. We have about 22,000, so it'll double easily, yeah. But the largest expansion will be in the deli, and the produce department. In proportion ratio, proportionate ratio, the fish will be expanded little bit, the meat will stay pretty much the same, but the grocery side naturally will be expanded, so that we could accommodate increasing number of non-Japanese, Koreans and Chinese type of food products, more basic.

BF: This is a major expansion, then.

TM: Yeah, it's exciting, though.

BF: Yeah. How does this fit with, sort of the next generation, running the store?

TM: Well, we have been, have had number of meetings to explain this project to them. And we said, "This design and, how it's designed and work is our responsibility, but most likely you're gonna inherit it. But the current block where we are, and the block south where there's surface parking, those are future developments that we say is kind of, what you guys want to do." So we have hired a architectural firm to do some "what if" type of planning, and they have been talking to the next generation about that.

BF: Do, have any of the next generation, Yonsei, Gosei, are they, are there some that are already involved in the business?

TM: Uh-huh, there's four, full-time. Plus all the others will come on weekend -- no not anymore, but weekends if they live in town, and summer or Christmas vacation they'll come and work.

BF: Succession must be a complicated issue.

TM: Well, that's the most, one of the most challenging issue for us. For any first -- for any family-type situation.

BF: Right, right. 'Cause now how many, do you know how many cousins there are?

TM: Well, there's potentially nineteen, my mother has nineteen grandchildren. And the other, unfortunately, is that not everybody is gonna inherit the same percentage because of more siblings within the family, and some of the original siblings have more stock and ownership than others. So that is a, so there's a lot of complicated issues.

BF: Who's handling that? Are you in charge of figuring that one out?

TM: Well, we have consultants that we have meetings with, from time to time. But you know, once I'm six feet under, I, it would be foolish to worry about it. [Laughs]

BF: Right.

TM: It'll work out. And if it doesn't, that's fine, too.

BF: Do you think the business will, there's a chance the business would ever be sold? Not owned by...

TM: Well, that'd be up to the -- I don't think our generation will sell it, but it'd be up to the next generation.

BF: And when you're six feet under, you don't care?

TM: I doubt if I'll have any influence. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 10>

[Ed. note: standing out on Jackson Street in Seattle's International District]

TM: -- improvement association through model city funds, we were using the office, under the NP Hotel. It's still being used there.

BF: Oh, really?

TM: Yeah. Interim moved out, and they came back a few years back. So I been "International District Activist" since early '60s, I guess.

BF: And you were saying that you didn't see really, there hasn't been that dramatic of a change, in your mind?

TM: Yeah, incremental changes, telephone poles, we got signs up, we redid the sidewalks, and there hasn't been --

BF: Seems like the ethnic group, though, has changed, no?

TM: Yeah, we have now ethnic Chinese from Cambodia, and Southeast Asian, Vietnam, which we never had before. Koreans have not moved into the area; we have only one or two Korean businesses, which is probably unique to the Seattle International District. But anything, even before the World War II, things north of Jackson was considered Japanese Town. But having said that, there was a lot of Japanese business all the way down to Dearborn.

BF: Hmm. North of Jackson was considered Japan Town.

TM: Yeah, and then, before they built the freeway, you were able to walk all the way up King Street, Main Street, all the way to like, Buddhist church. And there were houses along Main Street. That's where a lot of the Japanese families used to live. So they would go to church going East, and then come West to go shopping and things like that.

BF: That's a long walk.

TM: This is before the war, yeah. And your grandparents used to run that hotel up there?

BF: Uh-huh, right.

TM: And that used to be kind of, the kind of demarcation. From there was the residential and...

BF: Nippon Kan.

TM: ...West of that was kind of the commercial places.

BF: Well, do you think now it's become, it was sort of more of a tourist place, and now with the new residential space opening up, maybe it's going to get back that old neighborhood feel?

TM: Yeah, we're trying to get it back. This has always been a neighborhood where people on a temporary basis lived. There were very, very few permanent housing. But having said that, a lot of these hotels were run by Japanese families, their families just lived in one or two units. But the overall residency has been primarily single, bachelor-type single SROs, they call them, single room occupancy type of situations. And a little bit on the fringe there used to be Chinese and Japanese families, Filipino families. But I think the census shows that most of the population here -- and there are surprisingly a couple thousand living in this area -- are primarily single, elderly, or mostly very low income.

BF: Uh-huh. And the area, you think then the area over the next five years will be what they call gentrified?

TM: Yes. And you know, we thought that would happen when the Kingdome was built twenty-five years ago. It's slow, but having said that, we do have one, two, five, four or five brand new senior housing. And then we have a number of old hotels being converted to some kind of housing.

BF: And is this, the senior housing, is it mainly Asian?

TM: No, no. I don't know, but it's not as many Asians as you would think. First of all, if they're run by like the Seattle Housing Authority, they pull from everybody too, but.... There is a good number of Asians, but I would take a wild guess that the Beacon Hill elderly housing project probably has more percentage higher Asians. For some reason, this is, attracts a lot of good, a lot of people that feel this is very comfortable here. Of course, there's a lot of people that don't feel comfortable here, either. For one reason or another, we have never been, have had enough subsidized elderly housing in the area. I mean, to say it another way, whenever you put it on the market it just gets snapped up. And Interim and the Housing Development Association have done a good job. NP Hotel, and two or three others. There's a number of still eight or nine vacant hotels that are candidates for fixing it up as higher quality housing. But there's a lot of reasons why that hasn't happened. But slowly we hope they get converted to good housing. And that's one of the reasons why I took on the Fujisada, because if we prove that project to be financially successful, then hopefully it'll convince other organizations to put in market rate housing.

BF: Uh-huh. And that's part of the growth and future of your company, as well as there's a lot of history in this area. You're an activist for this area.

TM: Yeah, you know, all the studies you read and all the lectures you hear, community stays viable when there's quality housing, because people take ownership. I think Pioneer Square has been trying to get, and they have been partially successful in getting good housing. Denny Regrade area, Belltown, now there's all kinds of housing. And I hope the stories and theories are correct in that it'll be successful. But if you lived or visited any major cities like New York or Tokyo or Hong Kong, living two, three blocks away from where people shop and eat and work is not unusual. It's cities like Seattle or San Francisco where people always wanted a picket fence, I think that's changing. Next generation don't have to have it that way. They have a preference. And then the freeway gets so clogged. Why you want to spend forty minutes either morning and evening?

BF: Now you were just saying that Higo's is closing, and that's probably one of the last, or if not the last prewar Japanese-owned business.

TM: I don't know the full story, but you know, they were here prior to the war and fortunately, the property was maintained and owned by some hakujins naturally. And so they came back, and they were one of the first, I'm guessing, to open and reestablish themselves right after World War II. It's a shame. You don't have too many "Japanese businesses" in this area anymore. Twenty, thirty years ago we used to have a tofu places, and little place, Chihara Jewelry, you know we had the photograph place. It's too bad we don't have those anymore.