<Begin Segment 13>

MN: Another thing that you mentioned earlier was Oshogatsu, you know, for New Year's, you would be sent out to get the nori.

KM: My dad and I, about a week before the New Year's, we'd go out for nori. And cucumber is usually winter seasons, you know, the sea cucumbers, namako is usually winter seasons. And then it was also, mochitsuki was a big deal. Mochitsuki was a big deal. I remember we had a stone, regular stone part there for mochitsuki, for many years. My brothers, my older brother, Katsuaki, did a lot of mochitsuki.

MN: So you folks had the usu and everything?

KM: Yeah, we had everything, we had everything.

MN: At your house?

KM: In fact, I think Katsuro, we used to do it at Katsuro's place until they lost the paraphernalia. I don't know what happened to it. Oh, I do. We got tired of him directing us what to do. [Laughs]

MN: So at that point you just go to the mochi-ya?

KM: Yeah, we used to go to Nisshodo, which is much easier.

MN: But back in Maui, what do you remember about Oshogatsu or New Year's in the Japanese community there?

KM: Oh, it was a big deal. Families used to get invited to different places. We used to go to, not only our family, but we used to go to different families to partake of the different kinds of food that they had available. As children, we didn't hold back. We felt free to go to the immediate families to, to taste all the different kinds. Because different families had different things prepared.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.