The Virtues of Corned Beef Hash
This short film by director Kerwin Berk stars Hiroshi Kashiwagi as a lonely old WWII vet, Joe Yokai, and Tim Yamamura as a young reporter, Kevin O’Hara, who is doing a story on Japanese-American veterans. This movie is mostly set in May’s Coffee House in Japantown, San Francisco, and except for a few brief cameos and asides to an apartment and a retirement home room, focuses on the two actors and their interactions. The brief scenes are interspersed with photo montages representing Joe’s memories and wishes.
One of the challenges and constraints is the lack of good funding for production. The film uses a lot of over-the shoulder torso shots in a talking head type format. This format can be done with a single camera, but is easier with two cameras. The camcorders capture video and sound, so less editing and synchronizing is needed for final.
Like “Infinity & Chashu Ramen,” another film from the Ibeiki Films, this short film was shot exclusively in San Francisco’s Japantown. It tells the story of 88-year-old Joe Yokai, a Nisei veteran of WWII who leads a solitary existence in Nihonmachi (Japantown), trying to forget the past. Joe is set in his ways and has fixed expectations for “proper” behavior. One day, a half-Japanese reporter named Kevin O’Hara inadvertently intrudes into Joe’s daily breakfast ritual of corned beef hash and eggs at May’s Coffee Shop. Kevin uses his acquaintanceship with one of Joe’s friends to get entry into Joe’s life.
O’Hara is researching stories of Japanese-American vets from WWII for a veteran’s day article on survivors of the 442 regimental combat unit and the Military Intelligence Service in the European and Pacific theaters. The 442 and 100 Regimental Combat Units were all Nisei (native-born Japanese – American) soldiers who became the most highly decorated units in Europe. The MIS were Nisei who were fluent in Japanese who acted as interpreters, intelligence analysts, interrogators, and sometimes the person to try to talk a Japanese soldier out of committing suicide rather than be captured.
Joe’s hard outer shell begins to crack and his life changes irreparably when he first meets Kevin, and tries to force his background and lifestyle on a kid from the Midwest. Kevin’s mother is Japanese and his father is Anglo. Joe wonders how anyone could not go to nihongakko (Japanese language school) every Saturday to become fluent in Japanese.
Joe is forced to interact with a young reporter and open up when the kid cannot even use hashi (chopsticks) to eat his breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs. Other than getting into fights due to his mixed race background, Kevin has never addressed being Japanese. Joe notes that wining fights draws fear rather than respect from others.
Kevin asks why Joe volunteered for the Army, when his family was being held in a concentration camp. the potential volunteers were asked a number of questions. Two questions became the focus of concern and confusion for many people.
Question #27 asked:
Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered?
Question #28 asked:
Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance to the Japanese Emperor or any other foreign government, power, or organization?
You had to respond “yes” , “yes” to get in to the Army. Joe felt that he had to volunteer to prove that the Japanese-Americans belonged in the US.
In another meeting, Kevin asked “did you have a girl friend?” Joe’s painful response was that he did have a girlfriend, but she married someone else before he came back from the war. He eventually forgave her and moved on, but never married. The painful memories of the camp life and the horrors of war were things that Joe had been trying to forget for the past 60 years.
Through a sequence of meetings, Joe loosens up and starts to let Kevin into his life. He teaches Kevin about Japanese-American culture and suggests that Kevin get married, so he won’t be alone at the end of his life. On their last scheduled meeting, Joe doesn’t show up. Kevin goes to the senior housing, after hearing that Joe had died, to go through Joe’s effects. He takes a picture from a cigar box and feels the weight of history in his hands.
