hashi

Words from Berlin

My bible here : "Berlin Guidebook" by Masato Nakamura

So I'm in a hotel room in Berlin, watching local news on TV, munching on chips, drinking grape juice and trying to write a digest of my stay so far. Mike and I decided to come to Berlin and have a little vacation before and after his meetings on Sep 10th and 11th. I had never been to Berlin or Germany before, and my teaching job at a college doesn't begin until the mid-September, so we couldn't think of any reasons not to. 

as I write this blog at a hotel room...

We arrived here last Wednesday, so it's been exactly one week since then. Everything seemed "wunderbar!" the first couple of days; we enjoyed the gorgeous fall weather (coming from muggy Tokyo where it was still the midst of summer), there were no yucky mosquitoes (while Tokyo seems to be suffering from a pandemic of Dengue fever, believed to have been spread from mosquitoes in Yoyogi park), everyone speaks English, we didn't have any problems getting around the town (thanks to the excellent subway system in Berlin), trains run on time and more frequently than the ones in Tokyo—plus it's never crowded even when everyone seems to be heading home. I was like, wow! I could imagine living here! 

First exploration day! Near Kurfürstendamm street, Berlin

On our 3rd or 4th day here though, I was already starting to notice shortcomings of this "wunderbar" city, and this makes me realize how quickly I take things for granted and start bitching about what I miss or what I don't have. For example, I was getting annoyed by not being able to find public bathrooms easily, because there are *always* toilets at the train stations in Japan (though when in Japan, I often complain about the presence of filthy traditional Japanese toilets and how unnecessary they are.) Even if I find toilets here, we usually have to pay to use, so before I know it, I naturally began to rant, "Come on! Who needs to pay to pee? It's the most basic of minimum human rights we should never have to ask for!!"

Subway station, Berlin

In addition to the lack of free public toilets, I began to notice how dirty some streets are here; there's trash littered around in some places even though there are trash bins available (for everyone to use, for free!) at every corner. I often heard people outside Japan saying how clean the streets in Tokyo are, but I'd never thought Tokyo was such a clean city before I came here; I was wrong! Considering there are 20-30 million people living there and no trash cans available on the street, Tokyo does hella good job keeping the city as clean as it is.  

Mauerpark—with some garbage scattered on the grass, in spite of several huge dumpsters in the park

I assure you that when I go back to Tokyo I'll find everything to be marvelous the first couple of days but I will soon find something to complain about; whether it's the humidity or mosquitoes, I don't want to do that! So that's why I wanted to take time to write my reflections while I'm still in Berlin. 

Trying to look pensive at Nikolaiviertel

There are things that Berlin and Germany in general do so well, so much better than Tokyo or Japan do; how they face and handle some of the darker chapters in their history is one. We went to the Holocaust memorial (Holocaust-Mahnmal) just a couple of blocks from Brandenburger Tor. There, you'll see thousands of stone monuments laid out in all different heights. We couldn't find any sign or a board explaining what they are so we decided to walk in the narrow paths in between the monuments. Within a few seconds of being down there, you'll realize what these stones represent and at the same time, you start having some indescribable fear. However, in order to escape from that scary maze, you'll need to continue walking in the narrow paths. The taller the stones get, the scarier it gets; you never know what's going to happen at the very next corner. I almost bumped into someone at the corner who was also finding his way out. 

Holocaust-Mahnmal, Berlin

These stones were laid out pretty close to each other and are a lot taller than us, so we needed to be careful not bumping into other people coming from different directions.

We then found this very insignificant looking sign just a few minutes walk from the Holocaust memorial and learned that it was where Hitler and his wife committed suicide. We couldn't believe how so unremarkable it looked compared to how those Japanese war criminals are treated (as gods) in Japan. There, too, we feel like we eye-witnessed great efforts and commitments of German people, not wanting to repeat that not-so-proud part of their history again, without hiding or turning their back from it. They must not be proud of their dark history during the Nazi regime, but they must be very proud of how they dealt with (and still dealing with) history and accepted and made amends for past wrongdoings. I am amazed and saddened by how hard it is for Japan to do the same. 

Where Adolf Hitler committed suicide — his underground bunker

Other than having free public toilets at the train stations, perhaps, there are things Japan/Japanese people do so well, too; superb customer service is one. I always thought that cliche "o-mo-te-na-shi" is overrated, but now I have to disagree with myself-then. Of course there are rude people everywhere you go, but Japanese people normally tend to go out of their way to be polite and kind—though not necessarily always friendly—especially to their customers. When you are a customer in Japan, you should be treated like a king or even a god (as in "customer is god" お客様は神様です), but in foreign countries, I'm not god, and I sometimes even feel like I'm actually working for them! 

Monday evening after we came back from Hamburg, I took a short nap. When I got up and opened the curtain, there was "super-moon" gracefully floating in the sky; that same moon that Japanese people enjoyed several hours ago. I realized some things are the same, even on the other side of the world. Everywhere you go, there are pros and cons. No place is perfect—though Sweden or Switzerland seem to be perfect, but I'm sure I'll find something to bitch about once I visit there. So, once I'm back in Tokyo, I promise I will try to focus on the bright side and won't complain too much, for a week or two at least! :)))))

Super-Moon in Berlin! (Monday, Sep 8th, 2014)

More later... 

Photoautomaten is obligatory, isn't it?

Kakuta Mitsuyo's book and discovering Ueda Shoji

I read a book ( 恋をしよう。夢をみよう。旅にでよう。) by Mitsuyo Kakuta recently borrowed from the library and quite enjoyed it. It's a collection of essays about falling in love, dreaming and traveling. They are written in a light, easy and comical style; sorta like blog entries, and I especially liked the very last entry called "Has your heart been shaken up lately?" 

In that entry, Kakuta talks about her time in Vienna where she went with an editing staff to gather materials for her upcoming writing. She had free time on her last day there, so she decided to scout around the neighborhood, with no particular agenda in mind (she notes that's what she likes to do in Tokyo too; walking from Shinjuku to Okubo just to see how these two cities are really neighboring with each other, for example.) And while she was walking about the city of Vienna, she ran into an "eccentric" building, which caught her attention for some reason. She looked up the area in the guidebook and learned that it sure was built by some famous artist called Hundertwasser. Without really knowing who this Hunderwasser guy was, she decided to visit his museum, which she found in the same guidebook.

There, in his museum, she says his painting directly came deep inside, and her heart was "pinpointed and snatched." This experience was new to her, because when facing the paintings that she's acquainted with, it's usually hard for her to look at the paintings without being influenced by preconceptions, and especially in front of some well-known paintings, she feels like she must feel something. So, she felt that it was a precious experience to encounter something/someone without having any preconceptions.

This reminded me of an recent event of my own. A few days before Christmas, a grad school friend visited me in Tokyo. She is a PhD student at Purdue and was home for the winter break. She and I both spent the summer of 2012 working in a language school in Oakland, and that's when we became close. I asked her what she'd like to do in Tokyo; I wanted her to decide, because she's on a vacation! She said she liked going to museums, and we decided to go to Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu. I agreed without hesitation because Natsumi Hayashi (known for Today's levitation series) exhibited her work there. I'd only seen her photos online but always thought her photos were amusing and looked forward to seeing her work. We got there and looked at her photos (such as this one below), and I felt like I was required to feel something; in all honesty however, I didn't feel anything, which came as a surprise to me.

A bit disappointed but pulling ourselves together, we went to another exhibition called "Play with Photography" by Ueda Shoji & Jacques Henri Lartigue. 

I hadn't even heard of either Ueda or Lartigue till then, but I was quite intrigued and quickly fascinated by the world of Ueda—I'm nobody to talk about photography, but to me, he has a very unique outlook on the world, and his photos are quiet but lively, artificial but natural at the same time—and my heart was shaken up, pinpointed and snatched all at once. 

Kakuta concludes her essay by saying that the same can be said about meeting someone by chance. Without having bias or caring about advantages or disadvantages, she would want to meet people in a stark-naked state of mind and get her heart shaken up unexpectedly big. I agree, and as a firm believer of serendipity, I think the key is 1) having the wisdom of not knowing everything*, 2) and appreciating unexpected and fortunate discoveries, 3) and then finally making a big deal out of them:) Encountering photography like these, and a photographer like Ueda, was a true serendipity, and whether things or people, I'm looking forward to more of these unintended encounters this year. 


*I came home and found out that Ueda Shoji is a quite famous photographer, and I even owned his postcard!! No matter how renowned he may be though, not knowing him (or noticing him) helped me face his photos without being interrupted by any preconceived ideas.  

in the park

小さい秋見つけた♬ Autumn is here!

三連休の最終日、秋分の日。秋晴れの昼下がり、実家の近くにある裏山へ両親とハイキング＆ピクニックへ出かけました。

木々の隙間からのぞく透き通った青空が好きです。

これは私の父と母。山道をグングンあがっていきます。

頂上に着くと安曇野や北アルプスが一気に目の前に現れます！

安曇野の大地。稲が実ってきて黄金色をしています。

コスモスも風にゆらゆら揺られて景色を眺めていました。

お彼岸の頃には必ず咲くと言われている、その名も「彼岸花」。

色んなところに秋が落ちてましたよ〜。

今日はマイクの誕生日だったので、彼の幸せを四ツ葉のクローバーに祈りました。

よく見ると辺りは四ツ葉のクローバーだらけ！

森の中には色とりどりの木の実がた〜くさん。

お腹が空いてきたので、、、

父がにぎってくれた特大おむすびでお昼ご飯。こんな天気のいい日は、外で食べるとさらに美味しい！

ここのところ雨が多かったので森の中はキノコでいっぱいでした。

帰り道、近所の長老猫、ゴン太にも会えました。

初夏の日そして猫 Early summery day and the cats

Plaque outside Stanley Coulter Hall, Purdue University

when we are not sure

poor Lincoln

My Audrey

Yesterday, a good friend of mine made my day by sending this photo with a comment:
"She is like you!"

What could be a better compliment than looking like Audrey Hepburn???
Seriously. Can't beat that.
Maybe, by saying "she is like you", she meant I would jump and smile like this, but hey, still! :)

I was thirteen when I first saw her film, Roman Holiday.
I still remember the sensation. I hadn't seen anything more beautiful than her.
Since that day, she has been my inspiration.

Every year, I buy her calendar, and naturally I have bunch of old one piled up.
I will share two of my favorites over the years of collecting her photos: