<Begin Segment 2>

MN: Now, when you were born, what were your parents doing for a living?

AK: They were both a barber.

MN: Do you remember which grammar school you went to?

AK: [Shakes head] We moved so many times that...

MN: When you were in the --

AK: Mostly at Maryknoll, I think.

MN: How close did you live to Maryknoll?

AK: At one time we were, I was right across the street.

MN: So if you lived right across the street, were you always on time?

AK: No. [Laughs] Not always. A lot of time I'd wait 'til the bell rings, so I rush and then sometimes I forget something, I have to go back to the house to get it and then I'm tardy.

MN: Now, when you were living in that area, did your parents do mochitsuki during the Oshogatsu?

AK: No, that was later on, when we moved to the hotel. Either my mother or father knew the owner, and they had us move in. I don't know how that name came. At first, I was born a Watanabe, and then she divorced and met Moritoki, and then... I don't remember if they got married or not.

MN: Okay. Okay. Let's go to the mochitsuki, and so you remember they, you were living in a hotel --

AK: Hotel, uh-huh.

MN: -- and then that's where you had the mochitsuki?

AK: Yes.

MN: You know, when you were growing up, what kind of food did your mother cook for you?

AK: Mostly Japanese. I guess you call it okazu. She didn't know how to cook anything else.

MN: What kind of okazu, though? With, like, just shoyu?

AK: With, yeah, shoyu and with a lot of vegetables.

MN: Did a sakanayasan come to your place?

AK: Yeah. Yeah, once a week he used to come around.

MN: What did you buy from the sakanayasan?

AK: Gee, I don't know.

MN: Did they sell other things, like tofu, konyaku, kamaboko?

AK: Yeah, I don't remember. I was a little kid then, so I wasn't paying attention. But I know we ate a lot of those foods, but I don't know where they got it.

MN: How often did you go into Japantown?

AK: My mother was a barber, she had a barbershop in Japantown, and so I was with them all the time. I would be playing in front, on the sidewalk.

MN: What kind of games did you play?

AK: Mostly marbles, and there's a little, the sidewalk has a marking of squares, they were all squares. Well, we'd get a soda water cap, we collected that, and we had one that we stuffed a lot of gum or something to make it heavy, so there is a big square, we'd try to... it recedes from the line and then if we knock one out we get to keep it, see who gets the most. That's about all we played, 'cause it was a sidewalk where my mother was.

MN: How about Japanese school? Did you go to Japanese school?

AK: I went to Japanese school. My mother sent me to Japanese school, but I don't know how old I was. I don't remember.

MN: Do you remember which Japanese school you went to?

AK: Yeah, that was a famous... [to wife] do you remember? The Japanese school?

KK: Didn't you learn at Maryknoll?

AK: A little bit. They had a nun there that, there's a nun there that taught a little bit. But there was a...

MN: Daiichi Gakuen?

AK: Yes.

MN: You went to Daiichi Gakuen?

AK: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.