Long Life Bicycle Shop Interview (Part 1)

次回、この記事の日本語版を投稿します。

As previously mentioned in Long Life Bicycle Shop and Saigon Curry, and, Long Life Bicycle Shop (Pre-interview), I sat down with the owner, Mr. Yatabe, to learn more about him and his many years in the bicycle business.

Thank you for your time and allowing me to interview you.  
My pleasure.

May I ask when and where you were born?
February 5th 1929 in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

That makes you 95 years old.
That's right.

Do you remember your first bicycle?
I shared a bicycle with my older brothers.  Back in those days children's bicycles were rare, only for the affluent.  Our bicycle was a normal single speed 26" adult size utility bicycle which we learned to ride "triangle-style" as our legs couldn't reach the pedals. (Note how the rider's right leg in the photo below goes under the top tube as his legs are too short to reach the pedals sitting on the saddle.)

Photo: Bicycle Culture Center 自転車文化センター

You mentioned your older brothers, do you come from a big family?
My family were rice farmers, I was born the fourth child of eight in all.   

How did you get your start in the bicycle business?
Well, my three older brothers were all in WWII.  The second eldest was killed in the Philippines in May 1945.  Pity, he wasn't even a soldier, he was already in the Philippines teaching local farmers agriculture when the war started.  But, as the war worsened he got conscripted by the Japanese Army fighting in the Philippines. He had no training, nothing.  The third eldest was in Japan and came back home right away at the end of the war in August 1945.  As for the eldest, he was sent to Manchuko (Manchuria) during the war, but ater the war was over we heard nothing from him.
 

As my third older brother already had a skill, it was my duty to take over the family farm.  Then around two years after the war ended, in 1947, to everyone's surprise, my eldest brother suddenly returned home. Turns out that at the end of the war he was captured by Soviet forces in Manchuko and sent to a Sovient internment camp where he was forced to work hard labor with paltry food rations.  Since he was the eldest it was decided that he would take over the family farm and I would seek out a marketable skill elsewhere.  I met with a bicycle shop owner in Tokyo who introduced me to a bicycle parts wholesaler whom I began working for.

What year was this?
It was 1948.  I was 19 at the time. 

What kind of work was it?
There were two other guys around the same age who had been there longer than me. I would make my rounds delivering parts and taking orders, riding over 60 kilometers a day.

Sixty kilometers?
But that is on an all-steel single speed bicycle, right?
Yes. I would load up the rear rack of the bicycle with all sorts of parts making it quite heavy. Sometimes if there was an order for a rear car (bicycle trailer) I would strap the whole thing to the back of the bicycle. The back of the bicycle was weighed down so heavily that the front wheel would begin to rise off the ground.  

Photo: Bicycle Culture Center 自転車文化センター


Photo: Bicycle Culture Center 自転車文化センター

If I remember correctly, following the end of WWII rationing was in place, correct?
Yes. Everything was scarce after the war.  Of course, rice was rationed, but rubber products like bicycle tires and tubes were also regulated.  Thus, tires and tubes were very hot items on the black market and would often fetch outrageous prices.  In fact, in 1945 the official price for a pair of tires was set at 108 yen, but on the black market they would sell for 2,500 yen.  In 1948-49 4,000~5,000 yen.  This continued untill 1950.

How long did you work at the bicycle parts wholesale shop?
About seven years in all. From 1948 ~ 1955, I was 19 when I started and 26 when I left.  I started my own bicycle wholesale shop.  

In the next post we shall continue with Mr. Yatabe and learn how he started his own shop.