“Good-by Chinatown” Photographs by Hiroshi Hara

A record of Japanese Americans and their friends I met in bars in Honolulu`s Chinatown.
Twenty years ago, a man spoke to me at the bar where I happened to go for a drink in Honolulu`s Chinatown. His name was Masa and was a second-generation Japanese-American.
At that time, the place was thought to be dangerous for tourists to visit, as travel agencies put out an alert. Japanese visitors were missed and rare in the place, so he and his friends welcomed me and took me a bar-crawling. Since that night, the place became my local.
I vaguely noticed the place was used to be Japantown about which can be heard from the descents who lives there.
Carrying my camera and tape-recorder, I traveled back and forth between the bars and the library my research.
Twenty years later, here I am in the Chinatown feeling a little sentimental about a total sea change of the place, and I dedicate this photo collection in honor of Masa and his friends.