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MH: What was your experience in Nihonmachi as you were growing up?

GN: Well, Nihonmachi was really our world. For a lot of us younger children that grew up in and around Nihonmachi, we were not used to traveling out of Nihonmachi. It was rather uncommon or rare to go on the east side or maybe have a trip if you will to Washington Park or to go to a downtown movie theater to the Blue Mouse Theater. Rather, most of our time was really spent in Nihonmachi, and our hotel, the Pomona Hotel, was located on Second and Burnside. But I recall very clearly, although it's quite a while ago now, many decades ago, Nihonmachi was full of stores, shops, hotels run by Japanese, fish markets, bath houses, restaurants. I remember the Sakano Jewelry Store, place that I received the greatest Christmas gift which was a Mickey Mouse watch from that store that I used to admire when I used to walk by it hardly tall enough to even look in the window, always admired that Mickey Mouse watch, and run by Mr. Sakano. Later on, he married, of course, Fumi Marumoto who became Fumi Sakano. And a couple doors would be the Furuya which was the manju, senbei shop, and the aroma that used to come out of there. We were not able to buy such treats and snacks often, so it was kind of a special occasion to go to Fugetsu, buy some manju, some senbei, bring it home. But as you walk down Nihonmachi, you're kind of taken by everything from the Star Fish Market to the Teikoku Mercantile Company below the Teikoku Hotel, the Oshu Shimpo down Second Avenue operated by the Oyama family at that time, the judo, the kendo places. I remember my father parking his Ford pickup at Akagi's Garage about three blocks away from our hotel, and everybody had to back their car into their stall. It was not a large garage, but I remember well. My father used to brag about being able to put his pickup when there's only two or three inches to spare on each side. In fact, he would park it so close that we'd have to open up the windows to get out of the car oftentimes, so that was something that I recall very clearly. And it was a car of course without the modern amenities. It would start with an iron crank, and he'd go in front of the car and crank the car up to get it started. It would have a clutch. It'd have a lot of things that, the horn had to be in the center of the steering column. But Akagi's Garage was a place that I seemingly went to often.

A block away was Inouye's Bath House which was on the main basement really of the Mikado Hotel, quite an unusual place. I think culturally, the Japanese like to take their relaxing ofuro. And to a lot of Japanese, taking a bath or taking a shower is not simply getting cleaned, but it's relaxing, it's soothing. It's really a period of the day to kind of unwind. And so a lot of people, Nihonmachi people on special occasions would go to the bath house, but mostly railroad people that would come in and simply be looking for going to the bathhouse, soaking, relaxing. And as you would with an ofuro, you really scrub and clean yourself before you step into the actual bath. There'd be a large bath, if you will, for the women, and one for the men. And I didn't go there but a few times, but I remember very well going in there, and there'd be a bunch of men in there, and we'd all be in there together and never think much about it, soak in there for quite a while, and you'd be kind of beet red like an oyster when you come out, but you'd be totally relaxed. So the Inouye Bath House I think was interesting.

There was the S. Ban Company. There was the Furuya Company. We mostly frequented the Matsushima Teikoku Mercantile Company, and Mr. Yasui who was Yoji Matsushima's uncle and the brother of Umata Matsushima, used to call on all the hotels and take orders for the Teikoku Company, and he had a car and used to go out to Gresham and Troutdale, Milwaukie and Hillsboro and deliver things on a weekly basis. But I remember going into Teikoku very often. It was filled with merchandise, hundred bag pounds of rice, Japanese records, judogi, kendo equipment, otsukemomo, can takenoko, kamaboko, books, even had a little liquor there, Japanese sake, Japanese beer. In the back, they'd have a little room, and I believe Mr. Matsushima or Mr. Niguma would contract recent arrivals for jobs to work on the railroad, the SPNS, the Portland Shortline. So Teikoku was more than really just the store. It was kind of a gathering place. It was a nerve center. It was where you sort of learn the gossip of Nihonmachi. It was where you met friends and talked about things. So we would not go in there and simply buy a few things and be out in a few minutes. Rather, I remember my parents, my sisters, we'd go in there and chat with people. I, of course being young, would just wander around, getting into mischief, touching things that I wasn't supposed to touch. But smelling the takuan, smelling the otsukemono, getting the mochi there for New Year's, getting the kinako, getting the shoyu, gave even a young person like myself an early introduction in part to Japanese culture, Japanese food.

So Teikoku was really quite an important part of Nihonmachi. Upstairs was Doctor Tanaka's office. And of course, he after the war moved over to Ontario, but Doctor Tanaka took my tonsils out as he did many of the Nihonmachi kids at that time. Doctor Tayama and Koyama had offices, and they were rather young starting up at that time before the war. There was the Oda Fishing Tackle Store just a couple blocks from the Pomona Hotel. The first time I went in there, I was rather shocked to see all of that at that time, sophisticated fishing gear. I didn't know they had fishing reels and fishing rods because when I went out to the fruit and vegetable stand, Frank or Harry would take me to the local pump house, and we'd go fishing for crappie with just a little stick and a piece of string and a hook and tie a worm on there, and we'd catch some crappie. But I went in there to Oda's Fishing Tackle as a young lad of six or seven years old, and my eyes just about fell out because they had something called a fishing reel and these bamboo rods and these flies that look like bugs, and I never saw such things, so that was kind of an experience. The Star Fish Market was full of fish of all types. I was just, didn't know the names of most of them, but quite a popular place.

So I suppose like many families, we grew up on the fish and rice diet, and our mother would prepare whatever, what would be termed as okazu, and okazu might be a little bit of bacon with beans or maybe cabbage or maybe eggplant or maybe a dash of hamburger in there, but we were quite used to tofu. I can't remember whether it was Kuge or Ota Tofuya that was a few blocks down the street. And Japantown was really kind of our own community. At a young age, I was not familiar with Southwest Portland with the exception of the Blue Mouse Theater and a few things down there. There seemingly was two groups, Japantown, Northwest Portland, and the group of Japanese families that lived in Southwest Portland.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.