<Begin Segment 10>

DG: Now, by the time you were ten years old, did you have any special interests besides, like YWCA you mentioned, but...

NS: And then reading. I used to like to do a lot of reading.

DG: What kind?

NS: Oh, fiction, all the mystery stories. [Laughs]

DG: Was Nancy Drew around in those days?

NS: No.

DG: Not yet.

NS: But there was another series that was around then. I remember scaring myself to death in the Fu Man Chu movies -- I mean, books. [Laughs]

DG: Did you go to movies?

NS: Yes, there were...

DG: Japanese movies?

NS: No, there weren't any Japanese movies at that time, I don't think.

DG: Oh, really. There should have been some.

NS: There might have been, but they might have...

DG: The Nippon Kan, did you go...

NS: ...I wasn't too awfully interested in Japanese movies.

DG: What about the Nippon Kan?

NS: Nippon Kan had programs. My mother used to go to the movies that they had there, and I used to take her. But I don't think I was too awfully interested in Japanese movies. And then there were programs, too, put on by Nisei actors at that time and she used to go to those, but I wasn't very much interested; I had other things to do, but I remember taking her.

DG: Like what? What were those other things to do?

NS: I don't know. Probably still sitting at home reading. [Laughs]

DG: What about Nagano-ken picnics?

NS: Oh, we dutifully went to those, uh-huh. They were held in White River Valley picnic grounds, and I remember going to those.

DG: What happens at the picnics?

NS: What happened? Oh, they had different races and three-legged races and things like that for children. And, of course, the folks all prepared beautiful lunch, picnic lunches, which was more fun to go to different people's to see what else they had and eat some of the Japanese food that they had prepared.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.