<Begin Segment 22>

TI: How about places like the movie house or theater? Did they have special events or performances?

JS: Well, yeah, they have plays for the New Year's Day. The whole community, dancing and plays. That, older people gets into that, too, you know.

TI: So describe that a little bit. Because we walked by the area, and it was a pretty large area for that...

LW: You know that place, the Oda grocery store is? Well, that's where that hall was, Japanese hall was. That, almost a half a block there. That's the one that burned down. See, after that burned down, the community kind of had no place to go. That's where they had movie house, plays, and in fact, a friend of mine had a service there, funeral service, because he was well-known. And the church can't hold that many people.

TI: And so for something like a play or a movie, how many people could sit there?

LW: That place is, they pack 'em in.

TI: So like a hundred?

LW: No, more than a hundred. That hall is a pretty nice-sized hall. Yeah, two, three hundred I think.

TI: And so when you say movies, would these be American movies or Japanese?

JS: No, Japanese movies. This Japanese company, they go all over Sacramento, cities, show the movies. And so we only get it about maybe once or twice a week or something like that.

TI: And so when you saw movies, were all they all in Japanese?

LW: All Japanese.

TI: No subtitles?

LW: No. No subtitles, nothing. But most of the movie we went to see, samurai movie, more action. Nothing the classical stuff. The funny part of it, like you said, it gets so cold and the building's big, so on the aisle they got charcoal going to keep it warm. But that's no-no now, you know.

TI: Yeah, because you have to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning. [Laughs]

LW: [Laughs] Then they sell little refreshment.

TI: And how about live performances? Did you have like theater or plays that...

LW: Yeah, they all had plays. Well, the Buddhist church used to have a play over there and the community used to show one. Where Christian church, only thing they celebrated was Christmas. They had play at their own church. And the only reason we used go to there, because they used to, Christians used to give us candy, Christmas candy, so everybody go there just for that.

TI: That's good.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.