<Begin Segment 20>

JK: And your family, having been merchants since the early 1900s, probably have quite a bit, bit of experience in selling some, some real traditional Japanese food items that are unique?

PD: Well, I guess we're kind of in the middle, 'cause thanks to my wife, we know a little bit about, more of Japan than... a lot of, a lot of things from Japan comes with no English on 'em, so it's hard to say, how do you do this, how do you do that. And you got to be able to read Japanese, and some of it I can't read, either, I just have to go by kind of memory or how things are supposed to be done.

JK: And how's the business of selling Japanese groceries and food items changed over the years?

PD: Well, first, we had a lot of canned stuff, oh, this used to be canned fish, canned chicken, canned abalone, and canned sukiyaki, but now, you don't have those things anymore. It's just, everything's changed. The process, process of even canning in itself, I think, has changed over, over the time, whereas the valley used to can a lot of tomatoes and fruits and stuff. But no longer are there any canneries in this town. So all the, all the things that you see in the grocery store now is in boxes and plastic bags and vacuum-packed containers, and now you have frozen meals from Japan -- I mean, Japanese foods. So everything is packaged different, and the cost of business of refrigeration and freezing becomes a big, big factor. And to run an efficient business you have to have a lot of capital these days to keep a lot of freezers running and refrigeration running to keep all those things. So that's the bigger, the bigger your energy needs is, the more capital you need to run a business. And so you have to run a bigger store to run a business or go, go to a specialization, so it's hard to decide what to do right now.

JK: Do you make trips to Japan to see what kind of groceries and food items are available?

PD: I did go to Japan recently, and I didn't get too much of a chance to see, but if you go to Japan nowadays, they say they have the shopping centers that are copies of the United States. They have those Eddie Bauer shops and they have tennis shoe shops, and much of the same things that our, our malls have. But they also have their own... Japan is a different country, I think, where they have smaller houses and they don't shop as often, 'cause they live closer to the stores. But they're getting their Costcos and they're getting their, probably Ikeas and whatever. It's the same as over here, and they're getting bigger houses over there and living in the country. But, like, gasoline is almost five dollars a gallon over there.

JK: And what differences do you see in the food items from Japan versus the ones here in the States? The traditional Japanese items?

PD: Lot of packaging is a lot smaller here -- I mean, over in Japan. As far as I can see, they still have their open markets, and whereas the open market here might be a flea market or something, but that's something you don't, I don't know if you go to very often, but that's something to see.

JK: And when did you start to notice this transition that you're talking about from canned foods to more fresh and frozen items, and the different type of packaging?

PD: Well, it keeps going on and on and on. It just, little by little by little, it just keeps coming.

JK: And it's very difficult to distinguish between what's traditionally Japanese and what is Japanese American. Have you ever noticed your customers, your Japanese American customers preparing unique meals using Japanese food items, traditional Japanese food items from your store, but creating new meals? And by "new meals," I mean meals that the Japanese Americans came up with that were unique?

PD: Well, it's hard to say, because the California roll is not found in Japan, because high cost of avocados over there. I mean, just, in some things, like spicy roll tuna, you don't find in Japan. Food over here is a mixture of everything. It's, the American melting pot is bigger than what you might see in Japan. Japan is still traditional Japanese, but they still have, I guess they have some mixtures from their Asian countries, too.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.