Saki Nariiwa and Hiroshi Nogami
Interviewers: Marilyn Clayton and Marie Bannister (for the Britannia Heritage Shipyar Project)
Recorded at Britannia Heritage Shipyard, Richmond, B.C., October 1, 1991
(Project) Tape No. 113:1
EXCERPTS ONLY _________________________________________________________________
Saki Nariiwa. born 1926, left site in 1929.
Hiroshi Nogami. Lived in store 1926. Lived in house 1927.
SN: We left it here before the war and everything is gone.
Re: Building #11
MC: Do you remember this one at all?
SN: No, it wasn't here.
HN: They must have moved it. This must have been net sheds.
SN: Well, it was just recently. But it wasn't here when we were kids because this was Ishihara's and over here there was a path way like going to some other homes over there. Then there was Marumoto's and Ishihara's. Hirayama's used to be way at the back and then Taniguchi's was right there by the ditch. It could have been the old, old net shed (before it was moved). People used to play badminton in there. It was a net shed, long time ago. But I think it was higher.
HN: Yeah, it was higher.
Re: Takagaki Store: 10 or 15 feet from #10
SN: 1929 when we left and I was only 5 years old. My sister is three years older so she would remember. (1932 Hiroshi lived here)
HN: I went back to Japan for the first time three years ago. I have a cousin that's, well, they had the store before. So I asked my cousin how old were you when you came to Japan and he said four years old. So that's... I'm the same age as he is.
MC: So you knew that you were four or five when you were in the store. (1926-27)
SN: So who had the store? Did he say?
HN: My uncle.
SN: And when they went to Japan, the grandmother bought it?
HN: No, no we took over for a year. But you know we were sloppy. I raided the store and the store went broke. We used to take candies and chocolate bars. So we sold it. Takagaki took over.
SN: What was upstairs there, did you use the upstairs Hiro for bedrooms?
HN: No, we all slept downstairs. There was nothing but junk upstairs. They even had a slot machine there, one slot machine. One (pool) table, one small table. Store one side and the pool hall on the other side and then they lived at the back.
HN: Before these houses (Phoenix Cannery houses) it was an open field and we used to play baseball there. Before they built those houses.
SN: They're the ones that came to play badminton in that net shed. (The Shoreys)
MC: Do you think that that big net shed there, that when it was at the back, do you think that's where they played (badminton)?
HS & SN: Yes, definitely.
SN: And we were kids, we used to look for the shuttle cocks.
HN: The stray ones, you know. They'd go in behind the net pile and we'd go and look for it after they'd finished.
SN: When ever we were allowed in there.
SN: The odd time we took fish down there. Dad used to say cause he used to go to Britannia. He, Mr. Shorey used to be at Britannia all the time. So he'd say take it down there.
SN: These are the red houses. (Phoenix Cannery Houses)
MC: Do you remember the boarding house? The Chinese boarding house?
SN: Hong Wo's. After the war in 1949-50 it was still there. When we were little kids if you saw Chinese men walking in rows and rows of people going to the cannery from there. We were scared of Chinese people, we were scared. We really hid behind the house. We stayed in. They'd grab you! So we were scared of them.
MC: We understood they smoked a special kind of pipe, did you ever see that?
SN: Long ones.
HN: Water pipes you know.
MC: Did they do that like right around here or...?
HN: When they were working in the cannery. I see them they take maybe two or three minutes you know, come down and rest. Then they'd be smoking this pipe, water gurgling in there. Tiny pot like that and then just take a little bit and they they'd...
""Roving Beauty"" built by Jim Kishi
SN: His boat was the first one with the rolling chokes that was ever made. Big strips of solid wood on each side so that it won't pitch. Kind of break it like. Has the newspaper article of when he launched his boat.
End of Excerpts
