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MN: And then going back to the adults like your mother, you were saying in the hotel she did the cooking. And I was wondering, did she ever do any teaching since your father --

KM: There were lots of other activities besides that. My mother was involved in a lot of other activities. I don't have the pictures or anything but I have... unfortunately, I cannot tell you whether it was teaching floral arrangement, or whether it was dressmaking, or whether it was handicraft, but she did a lot of that. We have, unfortunately, we do have some pictures, but there were no notations. I remember on Maui there were a lot of times visiting teachers from Japan or from Honolulu who would come and teach and then invariably it would be coordinated by my mother or my father. But usually my mother worked for these dressmaking or flower arrangement. There was no tea ceremony teacher or flower arrangement teacher full-time. This was basically done on a part-time basis and on a more or less piecemeal basis of when a certain occasion arise and you have a gathering, and then invariably my mother would be involved one way or the other.

MN: And if she were teaching dressmaking, is that yofuku, western dressmaking or Japanese?

KM: It was mostly western. These were mostly western things, except for the flower arrangement, and tea ceremony type things like that.

MN: And in those days, I don't know if you have the answer, but who would she teach these Japanese skills to?

KM: Mostly wives of the, from the community of Kahului, which is made up of ladies from the camp and ladies from the town.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.