<Begin Segment 14>

RP: You were describing earlier your memories of Japantown just down the hill from the hotel. Do you have any other experiences or memories of particular businesses or places that you went?

VI: Well, Japantown had all the...

RP: Maybe give us a, kind of a portrait of how you remember it as a kid growing up.

VI: Well, Japantown on Main Street had about three, four restaurants, and they had couple of restaurants we used to go to. But they used to have a restaurant called Gyokkoken, that was the name of the restaurant. And I think anybody that went to Japantown will, will remember their sweet and sour, they called it pakui, and the egg foo young, and things like that you really remember. Because, and they try to duplicate it, but I think the reason why food tasted so good during that time was they used lard and fat and all the tastes that you don't get nowadays. They had Sagamiya, which is a Japanese pastry place, they made cookies and all that, and they had bathhouses. Because most of, like even our hotel, we only had one bath per floor, so my dad would take me down and we'd go to the public bath. And it'd be hotter than heck, you can barely move, it's so hot. But if you ever take a hot bath like that, you really get tired out, you know, it just saps you.

[Interruption]

RP: Victor, we were talking a little bit about your visits to the bathhouse in the Japantown.

VI: Bathhouse.

RP: Yeah, the water was really, really hot so you, they'd have a cold water faucet, and we'd turn the cold water faucet and just sit by that because the water was so hot. I remember that. And then, of course, the Isseis didn't like that because they liked the hot bath and make us turn it off. But the hot water will sap you out so when we'd get out, Dad would ring the bell that's on the counter, and the attendant would come and bring us this Orange Crush. Little things like that you really remember 'cause at that time it tasted good. You know, your memories are, you never, Orange Crush doesn't taste like this, the way it used to. And one of the interesting experiences was one of the bathhouse, of course, you have it separated between men and women, and you have this partitioned wall. And I'd go with my dad, and my dad would want my mom to wash me so he'd shove me under the partition, and I'd pop out on the women's side. [Laughs] And she'd wash me, and I'd pop back out on the other side. So that's where I learned how to swim underwater. [Laughs]

RP: So can you recall how early or how young you were when you first went to the bathhouse?

VI: I can't because I remember going to it when I was young. Now we've gone back to Seattle and they still have the replica of the old bathhouse at Panama Hotel. If you ever get back to Seattle, they still have that, and they preserved it. But what happens, after the war they had it, and we used to go down after a ball game or went after mushrooms or something in the mountains, we'd come back and go to the bathhouse. But then we had environment, we had the different restrictions and all that, so the bathhouses all had to close down because of health reasons, and everything got more sanitary so they don't have any more. But when we go to Japan we look forward to going to the hot springs. In fact, once a year, our friends, we go up to Canada to go to the Harrison Hot Springs. We just kind of enjoy just sitting around in the hot tub. [Laughs]

RP: And they serve you an Orange Crush.

VI: [Laughs] Yeah.

RP: So you're describing the bathhouse a little bit, but there was one large sort of public space for the men and one for the women?

VI: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RP: Were there also private tubs?

VI: No, there were always community for the women and community for the... and you never got in there until you washed yourself. So they have a bench or the ledge there, you sit there, you get a pail of water and then you wash yourself, and you rinse off. Then you get into the hot water and then always a shower. You could always take a shower, I remember. So...

RP: And how often would you go to the bathhouse?

VI: Maybe once a week, maybe every other week or something. It was kind of a luxury thing for us, I think, to go to the bathhouse.

RP: So Japantown had its special...

VI: They had, I think they had three of 'em there.

RP: Three bathhouses.

VI: Right.

RP: So it was an important place for you to go maybe for a special meal, to bathe.

VI: For a restaurant, bathe, right.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.