<Begin Segment 21>

PW: What, what's your, what do you think about the future of Ikenobo ikebana, since you're very involved?

SK: Well, this is kind of... I can't say it out loud, but, you know, more younger people comes in... unless lots of Chinese, Taiwanese people are Ikenobo. You should see the, lots, you know, I didn't know it's lots of chapter there, but that tiny island, but I know one north part of chapter, the two thousand member going. And they have, I don't know, five or six chapter in Taiwan, and the most is 1,500. Not less than one thousand, you know. So it's lots of Chinese, I mean, Taiwanese girls are here, and they're so keen onto this. Eventually, I think, all the chapters gonna be Taiwanese, the girls are gonna take over. Unless Sansei, Yonsei, or young Japanese are coming from Japan to, with marriage, and those people took after. But for instance, I teach one girl married to a Canadian, and she came here. But they bought a house, and if they have a family, they can't come out. So older people are, everybody's almost -- more than, not almost, but retired, and some are forgetful. [Laughs] So I like the next forty-fifth anniversary headmaster's daughters, Yuki-san is the next headmaster, Hijiki Imoto is the next headmaster. Husband's looking after that, too. Right now, Japan is the same; younger people is getting less and less. So they're trying to do all those, like, high school, they want to put ikebana in the kamoku ne, so they could... right now isn't a high school there, unless it's a special course. The school makes it, the few people -- it's not in the subject, okay? So it's not going to be in the report or in report cards. But my days, ikebana was in the report cards. You're, how many you're percentage in there, so...

PW: And do you think the... like Ikenobo is the largest of the ikebana groups, right? Do you think Ikenobo will still continue to be the most active one?

SK: Japan, yes. So this Yuki-san's husband is Ikenobo now, name. He's trying to do... Ikenobo have a university in Kyoto, it was almost gone, and when he went in and build up.

PW: So he's promoting it a lot more now.

SK: Yeah, promoting. And then he goes out to speak for the young group to why, why it's better to learn ikebana, why? This is that kind of subject, speech. When you're going out from Japan, where you go, you're North America or south to Asia, if you know how to entertain with flower arrangement, nobody will say, "I don't like flower," so, and the guest or something, you could speak and I could arrange the flower. Some place, you go to Europe, if you know the ikebana... they think Japanese knows ikebana, but lots of people doesn't these days. So it's better to learn how to arrange the flower. It's not only that, that the university teaching how to educate and everything, teaching English, teaching cooking course, Japanese traditional cooking course and those things they were teaching. That's why it came up. So I like to invite him to come, because he speak English and Japanese both, half and half, he could, with... even elderly people, some Ikenobo decide, "This is what Japan, our Ikenobo group said. If you take Ikenobo course, you live longer." So lots of hundred years old... [laughs]

PW: You're an example of that, aren't you? [Laughs]

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2005 Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre and Densho. All Rights Reserved.