Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: Tea (1986) Summary & Analysis

Marty and Samantha meet Henry at the Panama Hotel tearoom. Marty explains to Samantha that Henry was not allowed in Japantown as a boy, because of Henry’s own father’s anti-Japanese feelings. Samantha asks if he was allowed in Japantown after Henry’s father had passed away. Henry explains, “After the Japanese were taken away, all these other people moved in. It was like wanting to go into a certain bar to have a drink, but by the time you turn twenty-one, the bar has turned into a flower shop. It just wasn’t the same.”

Marty presses Henry: “After all those years of being told not to, when you finally had your chance, you still didn’t want to wander over, just to see?” Henry explains that going to Nihonmachi was too painful for him, which confuses Marty and Samantha. “Why would it be painful if you never went there in the first place, if your father forbade it?” asks Samantha. For the first time, Henry reveals his past: “I went and saw many things,” he says. “In many ways, the best and worst times of my life were spent on this very street.”

Henry says, “I’m glad Samantha asked, because it certainly makes the rest of this easier to explain.” Marty is confused about what “the rest” means, but Henry merely asks his son and Samantha to join him in the basement of the hotel. Once there, Henry explains that when the Japanese families of Seattle were sent to interment camps, “they could only take two suitcases each and one small seabag, like a duffel bag.” This is the reason that so many families “stored their valuable belongings in places like this hotel, the basements of churches, or with friends.”

Henry confesses that he needs Marty and Samantha’s help “looking for something.” Marty guesses that his father is looking for “an old forgotten Oscar Holden record, one that supposedly doesn’t exist anymore”; to Samantha he explains that this record is his father’s “Holy Grail.” Henry reveals that he knows the record existed because he bought it—but could not play it on his parents’ Victrola. When Samantha asks where Henry’s record is now, he says that he “gave it away [a] long time ago.” If another record exists among the Japanese families’ possessions, Marty wants to know, to whom might it have belonged? “Someone your old man didn’t want you hanging out with on the wrong side of town?” Marty says. “Find it and I’ll tell you,” Henry replies.