kyoto

on our way to see our friends in kyoto, we made a brief stop at kyoto station. paul and i used to go there to take pictures of the new kyoto station.

in the station, there was a small gallery promoting a new drama situated in kyoto. they didn’t forget to make this photo board. i love these thing — so stupid and so good. of course, elijah was the first victim.

we think elijah would make a pretty mr. geisha-san.

sorry, elijah. your papa and mama love these stupid things…

we love you, elijah! don’t forget.

elijah is big in japan.  i mean it literally.  when we went back to japan over the holidays, we stayed in wakayama, kyoto and tokyo. everywhere we went, people said to us, ‘he’s so big! Soooo big!’.

elijah’s also big in canada. he’s now almost 8 months old and weighs almost 10kg.  he’s on the 90th percentile growth curve.  i can feel it in my arms — more and more muscle.

it’s been a crazy couple of weeks since we got back from japan. finally i have some time to organize photos from our trip.

here are some photos from a subway ride in kyoto.  a bunch of high school girls came up to us saying ‘kawaii, kawaii!’ to elijah. they surrounded us in the subway train and took a lot of photos of elijah with their cell phones.

one of the girls gave him a chiroru choco (a popular bite-size chocolate).  her friends teased her saying it’s too soon for a baby to eat chocolate.  she was very sweet.  she put the chocolate back in her pocket, but then she snuck it under elijah’s leg as we were getting ready to get off the train.

of course, paul and i ate the chocolate. it was the sweetest chocolate.

i got my first driver’s license yesterday. i avoided getting one for a long time. i preferred walking and taking public transportation to driving a car. in kyoto, i used to ride my bicycle to work, 40 minutes each way. my bicycle was my favorite mama-chari (mama style bicycle, with only one gear, like this one from muji). in japan the trains are very convenient, so you can go almost anywhere easily. but in canada, it’s hard to get around without a car, and so many of the shops are in the suburbs along busy roads. now that i have a baby coming i’ll need to be able to go somewhere in the car without waiting for paul to come home and drive.

so i took some lessons and practiced my driving. i expected that i would have trouble paying attention when i’m driving, because i always get distracted so easily. but i found i can do it, even though sometimes i’m nervous. the hardest part of the driver’s test was parallel parking — it took me 3 tries. but it got it!

here’s a rapping lesson for all of you drivers. watch out for the NO ZONES!…

(click the image to view close up)

i did this drawing for the new “unbound: gender in asia” issue of the kyoto journal. i originally submitted this along with “all i can see” for possible cover images. i guess they didn’t want so many nipples on the cover: “all i can see” didn’t get used at all, and this drawing is on the table of contents page. it’s strange, because i think “all i can see” is a way better drawing than this one. that’s okay, it showed up in the interview about me in the sheaf.

the actual cover of the kyoto journal issue shows a collection of women’s shoes. it was published back in november, but i couldn’t find it in any bookstores in saskatoon (it’s distributed all over the world). i had to wait to receive my copy from japan.

as a supplement to the issue, some of my drawings are being shown on the kyoto journal online. i chose the two drawings that i did on purpose for this submission, plus some other drawings that ended up having something to do with gender. or at least, they’re nipple-related.

i thought about the theme of gender when i was drawing “forbidden fruits” and “all i can see”. i don’t usually think about anything when i’m drawing, except drawing (and curb your enthusiasm, which i watch a lot while i’m drawing). i don’t really know what this drawing “means”, but that’s what i drew.

the kyoto journal is written in english, so you can read it too. look for it in your local bookstore. if you find it in saskatoon, let me know!

in japan, the last day of year is called “omisoka” - new year’s eve. usually people spend the time preparing our traditional new year’s meal (”osechi ryouri“) and cleaning the entire house (”osouji”, meaning literally “big cleaning”).

when i was growing up, my mom was in charge of cooking and my dad was in charge of cleaning. he and i would tackle the house inside and outside, including some spots that don’t get usually cleaned — behind furniture, etc. the big cleaning is supposed to purify everything so that everyone can make a fresh start for the coming year. it’s also said that we clean because toshigami (the god of the upcoming year) will visit every house to bless us.

my mom makes at least twenty dishes for the new year’s meal, osechi-ryouri. most of them are vegetable and fish dishes, which require a lot of prep work. i would be in charge of prep work and testing :) all the dishes are made before new year’s and served cold so there won’t be so much work preparing meals on the actual holiday.

in the evening, we’d all sit down to watch “ko-haku uta-gassen” (”red vs white” song battle tv show) on NHK. this is a very popular yearly event where stars sing the most popular songs from that year (with some older and traditional songs too). by that point, you’d think we’ll be too tired to stay awake until midnight listening to people sing. but surprisingly, it’s really fun. the house is incredibly clean and smells like the osechi ryouri dishes - thanks to our hard work. everyone is pretty happy… and hungry :D

a year never ends without eating toshi-koshi soba (”year-bridging” buckwheat noodle soup). you can eat it hot or cold. in my parents’ house usually we eat it hot with sansai.

it is thought that we eat soba because:

1. soba noodles are thin and long. so you live long, humbly .
2. soba noodles are easily cut. so you can say good-bye to bad luck and unfortunate events that might have occured during that year.
3. soba noodles are made of buckwheat, which helps clean your digestive system. clean body for the new year!

my mom says the main reason is #3. i’d like to add a new theory:

4. because it’s tasty.

we eat soba and we talk about how healthy we’ve been and wish the same for the coming year.

jyoya no kane (new year’s bells) begin ringing around 10:40 pm, continuing past midnight. all the bells in Buddhist temples throughout japan are rung 108 times to anounce the passing of the old year. they ring really slowly, so it takes an hour and a half. everyone goes to their local temple to say prayers on new year’s day.
when i was living in japan, i would go back to my parent’s house in wakayama for the new year’s holiday (dec 28 ~ jan 3) and we would visit kokawa temple.

one time when i was living in kyoto for college, my parents visited me there for new year’s eve. this was back in 1993, and on that night kyoto was packed with even more people than usual to celebrating the city’s 1200-year anniversary (kyoto was established as Japan’s capital under the name “Heian-kyo” in the year 794). my parents and i went to chion-in temple to see the famous bell-ringing. as expected, it was extremely crowded. we got carried along involuntarily by the wave of people trying to go forward. the sound of the bell echoed low in my body. it’s probably still echoing inside now.

you can listen to the different sound of the jyoya no kane on this website. just click on the red boxes with a speaker.

i hope you all have a happy new year!

(click the image to view close up)

this is a drawing for an exhibition in spain in 2007. this exhibition is called “dreams” organized by roger omar in spain.

In 2002 I started a project of dreams. I ask kids from
different countries to write their dreams during 2 weeks.
From hundreds of dreams I made a selection of 60 very short
dreams from kids of México, Spain and Brasil.

he invited artists to select and draw one kid’s dream, to make an artbook of 60 dreams/artists. from the interesting children’s dreams, i chose #32.

32. (SPAIN-GIRL) - Yuka Yamaguchi
I dreamed that I married my dog. I was in the altar, dressed in white, with my fiancé. When the priest said “Kiss the bride”, I saw that my fiancé was a boy with my dog´s face.

usually i’m not good at drawing with a theme in mind. but to my surprise, i had a good time drawing this :) i hope the girl who dreamed this dream will like my drawing.

this result of this project will become an artbook. The exhibition of the project will take place in Cadiz-Spain, 2007. The kids dreams and the images of the book will be exhibited, as well as some other things related to the project, like photos and some original kids-written dreams.

along with their drawing, the artists are asked to submit one dream that they had in 2006. oh boy… i have tons of dreams to choose from. i dream a lot, or so it seems. after seeing my drawings, some people have asked me if i have nightmares. i really don’t. i have some scary dreams featuring cats (i’m scared of cats), but i’m not sure if those are in the nightmare category.

i have some of the same dreams over and over again. here are my recent dreams:

• i enter Nijo castle (in kyoto) at 2am and have to run around and around the castle 10 times before dawn without being caught by the security guards. it’s hard, because Nijo castle has special “nightingale floors” that squeak when you step on them (protecting against ninjas!). cats keep getting in the way and i can’t run past them…
• i’m on an escalator with hundreds of steps, and it’s not moving. i need to get to the top of the building because i need to buy a toy from the toy department of this department store. but by the time i get to the top of the stairs, a different dream starts…
• i’m riding on the electric streetcar in kyoto, but i’m on the wrong train, going in the wrong direction. i’m carrying a suitcase that i have to keep secret and safe.

none of my dreams are really nightmares but they’re pretty stressful. maybe i’ll draw them someday.