<Begin Segment 9>

RP: Now, did either one of you get involved in sports while you were growing up?

GU: We were too young at the time. I don't know about you, but...

RP: Florin had a baseball team.

LU: Yeah. Florin had a pretty good baseball and basketball team. And I think it was mostly, the participants were people from the Buddhist church that was in the, into sports a lot. But they were good in both baseball and basketball.

RP: How about Japanese martial arts, kendo, judo? Was that available in the community?

LU: Yeah. You know, I might be wrong, but maybe the sister, Ruth, that had the TB, maybe that might have been the cause of it. I heard that when you were, she was into kendo, and even during the wintertime when it's cold, you sit on the floor. And maybe that might have, that might have caused her to get sick or something. But I remember they were having kendo classes. I never attended it.

GU: Yeah, I didn't have anything to do... but we did have those kendo equipment, you know, the metal masks and all the other things. They were big and they were heavy. And so I don't see how she was able to manage doing kendo lessons.

RP: You said you observed both the Japanese and American holidays? Was your upbringing both Japanese and American culture as well?

LU: We never, I don't think we observed any Japanese holidays.

GU: Well, New Year's we ate Japanese food and sake and things like that. That's the only thing... but yeah, I don't know of any particular Japanese holidays that we celebrated.

LU: I think some families, they observed the Girl's Day and the Boy's Day, and the Girl's Day, I think some families had a big array of doll exhibition. In our family, I think it was mostly American holidays.

RP: Christmas?

LU: Yeah, Christmas, New Year's, Easter, Thanksgiving. I know for...

GU: Oh, we had mochitsuki. Yeah, I don't know how, my father had gotten this big tub like metal, made of rock and cement to pound the mochi. And we always had mochitsuki at our farm. All the neighbors would come down together.

RP: So who did the pounding?

GU: Well, I never got into it, I was too small then. [Laughs]

LU: Yeah, you know, our family, well, there are three older brothers, and then the farmers, lot of 'em had a good-sized family, so there were a lot of guys who could do the pounding.

GU: Yeah, the Sakakihara family that I mentioned, they had... well, how many boys? Five boys?

LU: Yeah, five boys.

GU: They were all older than us. I'm sure they did a lot of pounding. [Laughs]

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.