during my summer holidays from elementary school, i was supposed to do a drawing every day showing the growth of  a “morning glory” flower i planted in the spring.  it was a combined science and art project.

i always drew the entire made-up 6-week record of the flower growing two days before school started at the beginning of september.  my drawings would end up showing a bigger, more beautiful and impressive flower than actually grew in real life.  a big bloom would show up suddenly in my drawings on august 30th or 31st.

one year, my flower died because i forgot to water it.  i did the same kind of drawings anyway.

anthony easton is curating a show at the art gallery of alberta based on the ed ruscha drawing, will 100 artists draw a 1950 ford from memory. he got permission from ed ruscha himself. 100 people have agreed to draw a 1950 ford from memory for this show.

anthony contacted me, so i had to draw something. i was supposed to use basic white paper - like the one you would use for desktop printing. since i had to draw from memory, i was not supposed to use any reference images of a 1950 ford.

it turns out, i have no clue what 1950 ford looks like. i have no memory of it whatsoever. i think it might look like a mama-chari bicycle. plus it says “ford” in japanese on the mama-chari, so it’s clearly a ford. the maximum team power ducks are impressed, except for the one evil duck who is trying to puncture the tires…

THE 1950 FORD SHOW
guest curator, anthony easton
september 21, 2007 – january 6, 2008
opening reception: friday, september 21, 7pm
curator’s talk: saturday, september 22, 1pm

art gallery of alberta
enterprise square
100-10230 jasper avenue,
edmonton, alberta
780.422.6223

tezuka osamu is the japanese animator known as the “father of anime”. i grew up watching his work, including “ribon no kishi” (princess knight), “fushigi na merumo chan” (marvelous melmo), and of course “tetsuwan atomu” (astro boy).

in general, i hate anime. i don’t own any manga comics. i just don’t like the style of japanese animation that’s most famous in the west — what people call “japanimation”, with the superbig eyes and supercute faces. i think it’s creepy, in a bad way. people often assume that i’m an anime fan, maybe because i’m japanese and i draw, but i really never pay attention to it.

tezuka osamu created the style with big eyes and cute faces, but somehow i still like his work. maybe it’s nostalgia, but i think his drawings are more beautiful and gracious than the style of the recent anime i’ve seen. my favorite work of his is a manga, “black jack“, which i read as a high school student.

“memory” is an animated short that uses a mixture of drawn animation and cut-out images. none of it looks like anime. you might be surprised by the style — but it looks really cool. the story is insightful about the psychology of memory of individuals and a culture. i like the idea that futuristic people will have a very different idea about us (our “toilet culture”) than we do.

youareadogyouareadogyouareadogyouareadogyouareadog……

i think i drew this in 2004. i’m scared of cats…

how scared am i?

• case study 1 (age 9): my friend showed me her tiny kitten on the street. she suggested that i hold the kitten. i refused, but she insisted. so i tried to hold it but the kitten was wriggling around in my hands and i ended up dropping it. luckily it was a cat, so it landed successfully on its feet. but it didn’t forget to glare fiercely at me. trauma.

• case study 2 (age 12): there was a famous stray cat in my town. it was a white cat with only one eye. she was a playgirl (cat). she was always pregnant - scar on her face and scar in her heart. there was always wind blowing whenever she was around. spooky and mysterious. what kind of life are they having, in the cat world?

• case study 3 (age 17): i came home from school and found a cat (evil one) taking a nap on the porch. i was too scared to walk past it, so i couldn’t go inside. i waited for awhile (hiding behind a tree) but eventually i realized i had to make a move. i threw a tiny stone (first few tries were too weak and i had to throw harder) not aiming to hit it but to make noise and scare it. no chance. it looked at the rolling stone and turned around to look at me with the least respect. i could tell it thought i was just a low class human being, ranked below this cat. shame.

in this drawing, i’m trying to trick cats into thinking, “wait a minute! am i a cat…? NO! i’m a DOG!”. and eventually every single living cat on the earth will be converted into dogs.

for some reasons, i don’t think this will work. but it’s worth a try.

this drawing will be included for sale on my online shop.

UPDATE: you can buy this drawing from my SHOP.

freshly drawn this afternoon. it’s been awhile since i’ve drawn in vivid colours. i think i’m liking it.

the kanji on the milk carton says yuki-jirushi, which means snow brand. that’s a japanese milk company that got into huge trouble a few years ago when many people around osaka got food poisoning from their low fat milk. paul was one of the first cases. interestingly, paul and i both drank from the same milk carton that day, but only paul got food-poisoning. he was really sick. later on, two men from the milk company came to the door of our apartment and apologized. they bowed very deeply and gave us a box of expensive japanese sweets. i felt bad that these two men had to apologize even though they didn’t do anything wrong.

the case was a big scandal in japan. 14,780 people got sick. you can read more about it here.

my drawing has nothing to do with the food poisoning scandal. i just like the design of the milk carton, and i’m used to since we always used to drink snow brand milk (before). my brain is very weak, like 0.1% milk.

during the taisho period in japan, a popular song in the japanese opera was コロッケの唄(”song of korokke“), which goes like this: “korokke is an everyday dish, we eat korokke today and tomorrow. are we gonna eat korokke all year around?”. “korokke” is the japanese word for croquette, the popular french food that had just been introduced to japan. japan still has popular songs about new popular foods. the croquette boom is over, but japanese people still eat a lot of croquettes. you can find them in the grocery stores and convenience stores, and they’re often served as pub food in izakaya. everybody loves croquette.

as a kid, i was one of them. i used to take swimming lessons every saturday. afterwards, i would be starving, so my friends and i would go to a meat shop to buy croquettes. the butcher would fry up some croquettes for us. i think they were 50 yen each. so it didn’t hurt my small okozukai very much, but sometimes i had to debate in my head if i should spend my money on a croquette or save it to buy a cute pencil. the meat shop and the stationery shop were on the same block. well, you can’t fight with an empty stomach :)

i always liked croquettes, but i never made them myself until yesterday. i’d never had croquette in canada, and i don’t think i’d had one for at least six years. so i made it myself.

i then realized that i’m not such a big fan of croquettes anymore. the croquettes i made turned out pretty good and tasty, but after i ate one i realized croquette is just fried mashed potato with ground beef in it. i’m not a big fan of mashed potato, nor fried food, nor ground beef, either. hmm… at least i like onion.

anyway, the croquette wasn’t as tasty as i remembered. i guess you can never beat the food in your memory.

either that, or the butcher in my hometown just makes way better croquettes than me :D

i still enjoyed making the croquettes and serving them. i wrote paul’s name in japanese on them in ketchup. he was happy.

recipe

this is for 10 croquettes:

• 2 potatoes (medium)
• 100g ground beef
• half an onion, chopped
• nutmeg
• bay leaf
• flour, beaten egg, panko (japanese bread crumbs)
• vegetable oil
• s + p

sauce:

• ketchup + worchestershire sauce + red wine + grated garlic  (i just used ketchup)

how-to:

1. boil the potatoes with skins on.
2. saute the onion. when it turns transparent, add the beef, nutmeg and bay leaf.
3. when the potatoes are done, strain the hot water and mash them in a bowl. set aside.
4. when the beef mixture is ready, damp it onto paper towel to soak up the extra grease.
5. add the beef mixture to the mashed potato, mix lightly (do not overmix).
6. move the mixture onto a plate and cool in the fridge.
7. heat the vegetable oil in a pan. arrange the dipping station for flour, egg, and panko. i used tupperwares.
8. divide the cooled mixture and shape into balls and flatten them. make sure there are no cracks or it’ll explode in the oil. it’s better to wet your hand with some oil so the mixture won’t stick to your hands.
9. when the oil is heated to 170c (if you drop in some of the flour and water mixture and it drops to the bottom and comes back up, the oil is about 170c), dip the ball into flour, egg and panko. i use my right hand for dry ingredients and left for wet so that the panko doesn’t get stuck together with egg. that way, you can get a clean result.
10. turn them when they’re golden brown. cook both sides.
11. when fried, put them onto paper towl to soak up the extra oil.
12. serve them with cabbage and tomato. cabbage is supposed to help you digest greasy food. i like rice on the side.

enjoy! (or not so much…)

i got some fresh rosemary from the farmers market last saturday. i remembered seeing a guy make a milky rosemary panna cotta on the food network one night. so i made my own last night, after midnight. that’s right, midnight cooking!

i was making obento for paul at the same time. usually people make obento in the morning, but i don’t like to rush (or get up early). i make a couple of small dishes so it takes some time.

cooking several things at once always makes me want to grow a couple of extra arms (like in this drawing). that way i could tackle multiple tasks at the same time. i could grow extra arms on my sides, but having extra arms on my back would be more helpful, because then i’d be able to cook up tamago-yaki on the stove while using my back arms to cut vegetables on the opposite counter. yes, my kitchen is that narrow.

speaking of extra arms, there are buddhist statues called senjyu-kan’non. “senjyu” means thousand hands. with some exceptions, usually senju-kan’non statues don’t have 1000 hands. they have 42 hands. the two hands praying are the true hands. the other 40 hands save 25 sufferings each, which makes 1000 hands. they’re beautiful. hands are special.

when i was little, a monk would come to my house to pray for my family’s ancestors. he was a very big old man with enormous earlobes and of course, a shaved head. he was a nice monk, but to me, at that time, he looked very strict and scary. for one thing, he was probably 6 feet tall and i was only 4 foot. my parents were both working, so usually my grandma and i were the only ones home. after prayers, my grandma would serve him a cup of tea. he’d bring some sweets and books to read for me. he would tell us some wise stories as well as a story about his son who was an american football player, a quarterback. he told us sadly that his son got severely injured during a game and was paralyzed. when he left, he would always pat my head with his big hand and give me cinnamon candies, which i hate. but i couldn’t say no.

rosemary panna cotta recipe

(for 4 small ramekins)

• 2 cups low-fat milk (or any milk or cream you like)
• one package gelatin (please follow the directions on the package)
• one stalk fresh rosemary
• 3 tsp sugar
• a dash of vanilla essence
• honey

warm 1 3/4 cups of milk in a milk pan. when it’s heated, add the rosemary and the sugar. in a different bowl, dissolve the gelatin in the remaining 1/4c of milk. add the dissolved gelatin to the warm milk. stir well and strain. pour into small dishes (ramekins) and chill. serve with honey.  enjoy ;)

how cool is this theme song!

“yokai ningen bem” was my favorite animation when i was little. the title “yokai ningen” means monster human (yokai is pronounced “yoh-kai”.)
it was aired between 1968 ~ 1969. i wasn’t born at that time, but i watched re-runs. i really liked this great opening theme and the darkness of the story. especially the part in the theme song saying, “i want to become a human soon! (gasha~~n) ” stuck in my mind. powerful.

the main characters are bem, bera, and bero. they were born out of one cell in the dark and soundless world. they’re not a family. nobody knows where they were born. they are not humans, nor animals. they are monster-humans, who couldn’t become true humans. despite their monstrous appearances, blood of justice is running in their bodies!

they end up finding a big port city at the end of asia. in the city with a long history and culture, humans are foolishly destroying its beautiful nature. they notice a sinister atmosphere, so decide to stay. they fight against monsters that will attack humans.

sometimes, they find out some humans are actually dirtier than monsters. sometimes, they are abused by the humans they have protected just because they are ugly monsters. even then, they don’t cease to fight against monsters in order to protect humans. in their hearts, there’s only one belief: if they continue to do the right thing, someday they’ll be able to become humans….

the darkness really got me. i found it very attractive to live in the shadow and to suffer from unfortunate destinies. it didn’t strike me as just a scary horror animation. the story was really unfortunate and touching.

nowadays japanimation is very popular in north america. that’s nice, but i loathe anime that characters have big shiny eyes and incredibly long legs, like this or this. i i find it really really annoying and disturbingly ugly… it makes me want to scoop my eyeballs out and soak them in bleach for a couple of days.

hayao and tezuka forever.

lyrics:

we live hiding in the dark
we are monster humans
our beast-like bodies that we can’t show to humans

“i want to become human soon!”
blow away our dark destiny
“bem, bera, bero!” (gasha~~n)
yohkai ningen

by the way, the phrase “i want to become human soon” is “hayaku ningen ni naritai” in japanese. just another useful japanese phrase to remember :)

director: noboru ishiguro
song: honey nights

i started studying english when i was 12. on graduation day in elementary school, my homeroom teacher, mrs imayasu sensei said to us, “english is going to be very important. with good english skills, you’ll be able to broaden your world.” she was right. now i can talk to people pretty much anywhere in the world and i can read foreign books published in english.

i studied english in my spare time along with taking regular english classes at school. the classes were very strict. i had to memorize hundreds of new words, phrases and grammar for daily, weekly and monthly tests. i didn’t like those tests at the time, but now i look back and think it was one important step. since the classes were strict, i didn’t enjoy them very much. but on my spare time, i was having a ball (do you really use this phrase? it was in my text book).

i listened to NHK radio english lessons for 8 years. i also watched british and american movies and comedies in english on tv and videos. there weren’t any subtitles for those tv shows, so i had no clue what they were talking about. it was useful just to get used to the rhythm of spoken english. in high school, i started listening to foreign music. the beatles were my favorite. i wrote the english lyrics on the left side of a notebook, with the japanese translation on the other. i’d translate the japanese version back into english and compare with the original lyrics. i did this with other bands too - the byrds, the kinks, deelite, otis redding… and for some reason, hanoi rocks (no question allowed). i’m not sure if it was a good way of learning english, because i hardly ever hear people say ‘the groovy!!‘ or the gorgeous!!.

NHK is great. they show a lot of foreign dramas - “doogie howser, MD” (great), full house (terrible), alf (no comment), beverly hills, 90210 (skanky). the contents didn’t matter to me as long as they spoke english. i watched “knight rider” too. it was aired around 2 am. a perfect hour.

you might notice that i didn’t talk to any english speakers. i was just studying. i didn’t talk to foreigners until when i was 19. we had some american teachers from jet program in my high school. i never talked to them. we also had some exchange students from australia. i think i said hello once. i was (am) very shy.

to break this bad habit, i decided to go to an english-speaking country alone. i was 19. i chose singapore. high tech + english + asian + safe = manageable. my spoken english was not very good, but i wanted to see how i’d manage in english. it was difficult but i did pretty good. many people helped me. many people thought i was a thai. many beatiful places to remember. it was wonderful.

it’s ironic that i’m interested in language, because i’m not talkative. i studied a little bit of swedish, chinese and french too. i can’t speak any of the language. but i like finding the similarities and connections in languages. i also studied american sign language. when hands become emotional, they look as though they were individual creatures. language is beautiful.

i’ve come a long way. but i still have a lot to learn. so pardon me, if i don’t understand you. me no english.

thanks to the magical site ‘youtube‘, i can access many music videos from japan. when i was in japan, i didn’t pay much attention to japanese singers. i was always interested in music scenes from overseas. i didn’t have many japanese singers that i liked. but kahimi karie was different. she’s one of my favorite japanese singers. kahimi karie began her career as a music photographer. her musical talent was discovered by her then-boyfriend, oyamada keigo (cornelius) when he asked her to sing with a band on his friend’s label. her first EP came out in 1992. she instantly became a ye-ye girl in shibuya. she is one of the “shibuya kei” musicians. she also collaborates with other musicians including the scottish artist, momus. currently she resides in paris. her sensual + innocent voice melts my heart. my autumn level goes up rapidly in my body. i’m deeply in nostalgia…