Sakura and Suitcases

It wasn’t so much that I hated packing – the clothes, toiletries, last-minute items remembered as I’m already walking out the door. What I really hated was trying to fit everything else into that 2x3 foot polyester suitcase. I can shove in all of the souvenirs I’d accumulated, the heaps of sweaters I bought in winter to keep warm, and the loose pages of Japanese notes I used as study aides, zipping it all inside and knowing nothing will fall out unless perhaps a rogue tornado came by and ripped it open.

But not everything can be packaged up so easily, and with memories, I’ve found, it’s quite different. I can write them down, create albums of photographs, sound out each vowel of their story, but over the years, they’ll begin to escape me - no tornado necessary besides the one in the depths of my mind. Eventually, the things that stand so tall and obvious today will be turned to chicken scratch on a postcard that could have been written by a stranger. The inside jokes and references will seem like obscure tales from a book I started at the end. Surely I once understood them, but just like reading books or watching movies, eventually we forget the details of the story. That’s the thing about experiences – no one has yet invented a suitcase large enough to fit all that they contain. Perhaps the only vessel strong enough for such a task is our entire life. We package each adventure somewhere in our spirit, and though, over time, our mind may have forgotten them, our soul still contains all the crumbs and pieces of our past, neatly woven together to create the exact plot of land we rest on today. In the end, we find that we are the suitcase, but one much stronger than the thick polyester we use for our toiletries. We might not have a container to open up that we can pull each experience out from, but we do have life's subtle reminders - like meeting someone new and feeling an odd sense of nostalgia at the way the corners of their eyes turn up when they smile. We let go of these miscellaneous feelings quickly, forgetting that perhaps they are pieces of a former life - our former life - sneaking out for a brief moment to remind us of all the places we've been. And that we still have yet to see.

“‘You know what I think?’ she says. ‘That people’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn’t matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They’re all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed ‘em to the fire, they’re all just paper. The fire isn’t thinking ‘Oh, this is Kant,’ or ‘Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,’ or ‘Nice tits,’ while it burns. To the fire, they’re nothing but scraps of paper. It’s the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there’s no distinction - they’re all just fuel.’”

—Haruki Murakami, After Dark

Seeing Clearly

It's been awhile! I noticed that I don't take many black and white photos in Japan, but I finished a couple recently and want to share the aftermath. I like getting my black and white rolls back because they have often been in my camera for a month or two, since I don't usually use black and white. When I get the rolls back, there are usually pictures I barely remember taking, seasons that no longer exist, and events that are pushed back into my memory after nearly falling into the black depths of my mind.

I titled this post, "Seeing Clearly," mainly for the reason above - that letting my photos accumulate and viewing them after a length of time allows me to see the context of their experience from a removed and clear perspective. Kind of like when something ends and only after viewing it months later can you really understand what it was. Speaking of experiences and ends, I am currently in my last month in Akita, Japan. I think I realized how short this is when, a couple weeks ago, a friend and I were talking about something we had been wanting to do together (it might have been hiking, I forget), and after I said we should schedule it, she reminded me that there wasn't any free time left. It caught me so off guard. We always think there's so much time left. What an illusion.

I also realized the impact of this soon-to-be-ending when I gave a speech to all of my students recently, telling them I will be leaving at the end of July. Sometimes my students will do really cute or pure things, just extensions of their being kind-of-things. Today, I walked by the Kendo practice on my way to my car and saw one of the pudgy first-years, sword in hand, yelling the same grunt over and over while practicing a Kendo move, perhaps trying to commit it to memory. Watching him do that made me really love him for some reason. It also made me really sad. Sometimes I look at people that seem especially pure to me and it really kind of hurts to even look at them. I don't really understand it. I have another first year student who is literally about half as tall and half as thin as me - he's so tiny and truly adorable. Whenever he comes into the teachers' room and then exits, the other teachers all pine over his cuteness together. I love to look at him because he's so adorable, but it really hurts sometimes. I really don't know what it is. I think maybe I am imagining the true reality of him - that maybe when he looks in the mirror, he doesn't think he's adorable, or that maybe he does, but that he doesn't want to be adorable, he wants to be handsome, and that maybe one day, or perhaps already, he's done something that really just made him happy, maybe something silly, but that someone told him it was weird or that he shouldn't do it, and then he would stop because he felt bad about doing that thing. I think the same thing about my purest, most free-spirited students when I see them taking a test and knowing both that they do not know all the answers and that they probably feel bad about now knowing all the answers. That kills me. I also felt this way whenever I'd see a bunny on campus last year and we'd make eye contact and it would sit there, shaking at the terrifying sight of me, and then run away. I would just feel really bad about it. I'd stop looking at them or try to walk really slowly or take different routes because I hated knowing that I disrupted their innocence. Maybe that's what it is - disrupted innocence. I guess the fear I have when I look at my students is that maybe one day there won't be any innocence left to disrupt.

Cameras used: Ricoh GR1 (first roll ever!), Nikon FM10
Film used: Ilford Delta 400, Ilford HP5 Plus 400, respectively



This DJ's setup was great...lots of monitors with either splashes of colored patterns or all white, like this. Kind of made me feel like I was being brainwashed, but then again, I guess I kind of was. He's blurry in the photo because he kept throwing his head around the whole time. I think I sort of loved him.



Trying to read graffiti in Japanese is a task my brain is just not ready for.



I'm glad that Kohta is laughing in this picture because he and his wife (next to him) are always laughing.


The irony that they used those umbrellas when it wasn't raining and when I was in the rain (on the right), I was without an umbrella.


Now, it's sort of like this never existed.


My calligraphy teacher. He's so cute. I just noticed that he dresses like a hipster. His name is Oishi.


This is my calligraphy teacher's calligraphy teacher! I think that means he's on the same level as Zeus or something. He drew this huge calligraphy at our demonstration. They had to put the ink in a bucket because the brush was so large. When he started painting, he slammed the brush onto the paper and the ink splattered all over the floor, as far back as where I was standing. I put a little dab on my camera strap for good luck. I told him this later and showed him the ink spot but I don't think Gods really care about weird girls who dip their camera straps in splattered ink.



I was really amazed during winter when I discovered that snowflakes actually look like snowflakes. 



After living in Japan for almost a year, looking at this picture doesn't seem that novel to me. Actually, thinking about the fact that vending machines don't exist on every street corner in America seems kind of baffling. They are everywhere here. Most contain juice, tea, and canned coffee, but I have seen some (rarely) that have food, beer, or cigarettes. To buy the latter two, you need to have a special card verifying your age.


This girl was just a filler DJ who played a short set in between acts, but I really liked her. She didn't smile, didn't dance or move her body a lot, but she was always flicking switches and turning knobs and her music was really nice. I think the best way I could describe her is graceful.



I love airplanes.





This was at the Snow Dog festival in Yuzawa in February.

Snow!


I mean honestly, he's so cute.
He is always going to Shikoku, which is an island of Japan. There is a famous pilgrimage that you can do in Shikoku, visiting over 80 temples and walking for more than 700 miles through the countryside and mountain terrain. I think it took him a couple months to complete it the first time. But when he gets the chance, he goes and does parts of it for a couple weeks, always starting again where he left off. Pretty amazing for anyone - especially a retired old man. I admire his desire to explore his mind through the solitary beating of nature. I am not sure what he's looking for with these pilgrimages, but I hope he finds it.


I went to a concert in Tokyo about a month ago. It was all day with at least 50 DJs playing on four different floors. The other concert pictures in this post are also from that show. Every DJ also had a VJ that played videos during their set. Some played the videos on a variety of small monitors, others on huge backdrops, like this one. I really liked the visual (and extremely creative) representations that accompanied the music. The picture above is of Uyama Hiroto and Haruka Nakamura playing a live Nujabes set. It was so humbling and beautiful to hear and feel the instruments I'd heard in his songs so many times, but by their original creators, live. 

This was another one of the bands/DJs that performed. Most of the DJs were Nujabes-esque, with a chill, jazzy sound, but this group was extremely energetic and dancey. They had about 10-15 of those people in all white suits on stage who were dancing, jumping, and flailing during the whole set. They looked so purely happy that it made everyone else in the room blissfully happy too. At one point, someone from the crowd threw their sweatshirt at one of the white suit people and it hit her in the face. For a split second I wondered if she would be annoyed, but then I saw her peel it off her face and start swinging it around her head with a huge grin. I don't know why, but it made me so happy.


On a totally different take of busy-ness, this is my first glimpse of Cambodia, on my way to my hostel by Tuk Tuk. This was in the capital, Phnom Penh, which was very run down and filled with a huge amount of motorcycles and traffic. Sometimes it is amazing and beautiful for me to think about the fact that the two pictures above can exist simultaneously in the world.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia








Thanks for stopping by. Have a bright day!

Blinded By the White: Winter in Japan

I was going to post about Cambodia this week, but as I looked around today, I noticed that the once white fields were turning their varying shades of yellow and green, while the last of the cherry blossoms scattered to the floor. In short, I noticed that Winter was really over. After nearly four months of watching mounds of snow build up outside my door, being pelted in the face by little things that looked all too like the snowflakes I used to make out of paper in elementary school, and sitting in front of my kerosene heater for a few minutes as part of my morning ritual - it was over. Coming from California, the only Winter I'd ever really experienced was slight winds and light sweatshirts. Snow was certainly unheard of except during those rare trips to somewhere more "exotic" than my SoCal headquarters. When I arrived in my prefecture/state in Japan, I was told that we have some of the most snow...in the world. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but most of the people I knew who came from snowy places agreed that this was a bit unreal. For me, it just felt like the winter wonderland I'd never had back home - since I didn't know what to expect, it felt normal to me (and I loved it). Anyways, instead of posting about Cambodia today, I thought it'd be better to share some of my winter pictures, since they'll soon be replaced by the coming of spring.

I also just finished my first Haruki Murakami book, Norwegian Wood. I didn't know what it was about before starting it, but I'd really recommend it. It's a love story in the way 500 Days of Summer is a love story - sad and twisted, but honest. I think its central focus is more on the relationships we have with people, not necessarily in a romantic way, but moreso the way that we interact and understand (or don't) the people around us. It also examines death, tragedy, and a certain philosophical level of emotions. I included some of my favorite quotes from this book on a few of the photographs and in the body of this post as well.

Lastly, I made a playlist of the fifteen songs I listened to most during winter. Just as certain songs can bring us back to specific moments, people, or places, these songs will probably always bring me back to winter in Akita.
Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?inzd14inthii4

Hope you enjoy. Stay warm and I'll talk to you next Sunday.
-M

Cameras: Nikon FM2, Nikon FM10
Film: Fujifilm Superia, Ilford Delta 3200, 





This lake, Tazawa, is one of the deepest in Japan and never freezes over in the Winter. There's a legend that a dragon lives below it and is constantly getting down with the woman in that statue. The heat they create keeps the lake warm. 



My city, Yokote, has an annual igloo festival. There are large igloos built around the city, with kids serving rice drinks and mochi inside, as well as tinier igloos built by students at elementary schools.

I stared back at her, but her eyes told me nothing. Strangely transparent, they seemed like windows to a world beyond, but however long I peered into their depths, there was nothing I could see. Our faces were no more than ten inches apart, but she was light-years away from me.” 

An incredibly snowy day where the horizon was hardly visible. It was like living in a giant marshmallow. If you try hard enough, you can see a little house in the distance.

“Everything was too sharp and clear, so that I could never tell where to start- the way a map that shows too much can sometimes be useless.” 

One of the junior high schools I teach at.

Construction signs are ridiculously cute in Japan. Besides elephants, there are also penguins, turtles, cats, and other small animals politely reminding you where you can't drive.

In this festival, all participants (mostly men) wield 25-30 foot bamboo sticks and then...beat the crap out of each other with them while the large crowd watches. There are three rounds to this beating - in the last round, two huge mounds of garbage (taller and wider than the length of a human) are lit on fire and the participants have to battle around these pits of fire. It looks so unsafe that it didn't quite feel real...but it was pretty cool. 

One of my best friends came to visit for a day at the end of our trip down South. He's an Instagram extraordinaire. 

I found this dog in the snow around midnight a couple months ago. I took her back to my apartment to sleep and tried to find her owner the next day. Eventually, her owner was found, but admitted that he dumped the dog because he didn't want her anymore. After some difficulties, we found her a no-kill sanctuary to stay at, hoping someone would adopt her. I got an e-mail yesterday saying she was adopted. They named her Momo. 

In this festival, you pay a few dollars and are given a wicker/wooden basket...thing...tied to a rope. Then they light it on fire and you get to swing it around your head until it burns out. Yes. Really. Japan is full of ridiculous and awesome festivals. 

And then, as usual, they lit some big thing in the middle on fire. 

This was from a Tug of War festival. Basically, there was an extremely long rope and people who lived in the Northern part of my prefecture were on one side, while the Southern people (me) were on the other side. I'm pretty sure we pulled that sucker about a football field's length. It took 20-30 minutes. In the end, the winners got to cut off a piece of the rope and keep it.

“But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.”