Cherry Blossom Saimin Stand

I lived in Japan for three years. There's a Japanese virtue of gaman. Gaman can be translated as perserverance, but it's more than that. It's the strength that keeps you going when things are beyond impossible

It's like walking in a fog, but not toward a summit or a resolution. This isn't about hiking up Mount Fuji, it's more like walking through an eternal blinding plain. You keep going.

On the morning of December 7, Kikuyo Hirasaki and her husband Jitsuo were working in Kikuyo's parent's store, The Cherry Blossom Saimin Stand. [It was near the corner of Nuuanu and Kukui Streets, next door to the old Silva Undertaking, the present site of the parking lot of the mortuary.]

That morning, Kikuyo's mother stopped by and asked if she could take Amy home with her. (Amy was Kikuyo's two-year old daughter). Kikuyo said no. Her three-year old son Robert was at the store and he and Amy could play with, and, in a little while, Jackie, her eight-year old son would be home from Japanese school and he could help her with the two younger ones. (Chuo Gakuin on Nuuanu and Vineyard).

Kikuo saw Jackie running down Nuuanu toward the saimin stand. She waved her arms and hurried him inside the store.

In a video interview, Kikuyo talked about that day. (I'm still looking for the citation of that interview.) She remembers being in the kitchen. She put a pot of rice on the stove and was “thrown to the ground. I got up and yelled for a man at the door, 'Pick me up.' I was hurt. I was bleeding from the chest. They took me to Queen’s Hospital. I didn’t know my children were all dead. . . I didn’t know until the day I left the hospital, that’s when my mother told me.”

On that morning, Kikuyo's children, Jackie Yoneto Hirasaki, age 8, Robert Yoshito Hirasaki, age 3, and Shirley Kainui Hirasaki, age 2,were killed, as was Kikuyo's husband, Jitsuo Hirasaki, age 48.

During the video interview, Kikuyo mourns the loss of her family, but she is especially remorseful about the death of her daughter Shirley. "If I only let her go with my mother," she says.

The Cherry Blossom Saimin Stand was the site of the worst civilian tragedy of the attack. Not only did three Hirasaki children and their father die, but George Jay Manganelli (also known as George Aiyam), the Hirasaki's nephew die, and several teenager boxers who were at the shop that morning.

PHOTO: The corner of King and McCully on December 7, 1941. (HWRD)

Women of World War II Hawaii