Travels to My Grandparents' Homes

There were ten of us on the trip.  My parents, brother, sister, cousins and uncles.  We went to Italy, to see Italy together, but more importantly to visit my paternal grandparents' and great-grandparents' childhood homes.  I took a few thousand photos on that trip, but for this project, inspired by Yokoyama's Travel, I made a book of photos that only depict/represent our movement throughout our travels.  I excluded any posed, smiling-for-the-camera-shots and any shots of recognizable tourist destinations.  I wanted to see if, like my experience with Travel, one could piece together a narrative.  For this blog I have included only two of the 30+ pages. 

three drawings of people in transit

part (D) of the pre-trip assignments

Here are three drawings of people in transit. The first is invented and is of my sister in Palermo, Italy. The second is from life and is a passenger on a train between Helsinki and Lieksa in Finland. And the last is invented and of a road trip.

10 tempting seafood specialities from Japan.

Are you bored of the same old Japanese food and looking to try something new, exciting and a little strange? From potentially life-threatening to overwhelmingly pungent odors to just plain odd, here’s a list of 10 of the weirdest Japanese delicacies from the sea. If you are feeling a little bit curious and want to expand your Japanese cuisine horizons, scroll down to find out more!

1) Fugu (pufferfish)

 
As fugu contains a lethal amount of poison, this is one fish that you want a professional to handle. And especially if you are thinking of trying the liver, which is delicious but full of poison, you may want to do some research on your fugu chef before chowing down.
One of Japan's most respected Fugu's chefs is Kunio Miura, he has been preparing them for 60 years. Watch below:

2) Ikizukuri (live sashimi)

 

Not for the faint of heart, ikizukuri is the practice of preparing sashimi from live seafood such as fish, shrimp or lobster. The sashimi is then served right on top of the still living animal. Supposedly it makes the fish seem incredibly fresh, adding to the taste. Needless to say, ikizukuri is very controversial as you are basically consuming an animal as it sits dying in front of you. Watch this video below if you want to see it in action:

3) Funazushi (fermented sushi)

 

Funazushi is made by pickling a type of Japanese carp in rice for up to four years. The resulting fermented fish is then cut into slices and served as sushi. Funazushi is actually a very old style of preparing sushi that is still done around Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. As you can imagine, the smell is incredibly strong and it has a vinegary taste.

4) Ankimo (monkfish liver)

 

As horrifying as the monkfish looks, the liver is considered one of Japan’s finest delicacies. Its taste is compared to the richness of foie gras. Monkfish liver is served in a tangy ponzu sauce after being rubbed with salt and rinsed in rice wine. 


5) Kurage (jellyfish)

  


Jellyfish is usually dried first because it spoils so quickly out of water. The dried jellyfish is then rehydrated by soaking it in water and served in a vinegar sauce. Some describe eating jellyfish like munching on rubber bands but others compare it more to cooked squid. It does not have much of a taste, so the dressing is key.

6) Shishamo (smelt)




Shishamo is a fish about 15 centimeters long that is grilled and eaten whole. It is often served in school lunches where kids fight over who can have the “most pregnant” one since the eggs are considered extra tasty.


7) Awabi (abalone)

 


Although it looks like a clam, an abalone is actually a sea snail and is considered a delicacy in Japan for its chewy texture and crisp taste. Abalones are eaten raw as sashimi but are also grilled. A popular way to prepare abalones is to grill it live, right out of the water, as seen in the video below:

http://www.sushifaq.com/sushi-sashimi-info/sushi-item-profiles/awabi-abalone/


8) Namako (sea cucumber)




Sea cucumbers are usually eaten raw in Japan where it is eaten alone or with a vinegar dressing. It is considered to have a “delicate taste,” but some just find it very bland.


9) Kusaya (Japanese style salted-dried fermented fish)



This Japanese delicacy is made by taking a fish like mackerel, soaking it in a brine for up to 20 hours, then laying it out in the sun for a few days. Some kusaya makers pride themselves on having used the same brine over several generations to make their stinky fermented fish. Although the smell can be overpowering, the taste is actually quite mild.


10) Hoya (Sea Pineapple)

 

 This funny looking animal that seems like it belongs in a sci-fi film has a strange taste to match its appearance. While not incredibly common in Japan, it is often served as sashimi and supposedly goes well with sake.

http://kotaku.com/square-watermelons-turned-into-bread-1713568650

Minimalism and Zen Buddhism

On Kawara, Oct. 31, 1978 (Today Series, "Tuesday"), 1978

This essay by Nick Currie from Mousse Magazine explores the emotional capacity of minimalism, beginning with Carl Andre’s firebrick sculpture Equivalent VIII and continuing to the late Japanese artist On Kawara and his existentialist Today series (previously on view at the Art Institute—usurped by the Charles Ray exhibition), consisting of the current date painted simply and graphically usually on canvas on a black background.

Currie touches on the influence of Zen Buddhism (particularly professor D.T. Suzuki, author of An Introduction to Zen Buddhism and many other essays) in Western art, specifically on John Cage and Agnes Martin. Currie makes the distinction between Western thought as Romantic, or “ego glorifying and exaggerating,” and Eastern thought as Buddhist and without ego.

Maybe we can relate this and Erica Goode’s article, How Culture Molds Habits of Thought, particularly with the view that Asians tend to be more sensitive to context. We could push this even further by tying in Michael Fried’s definition of theatricality in Minimalism—that minimalist sculpture, particularly Donald Judd and Robert Morris, relies heavily on the bodily relationship between objects in space—or a “holistic view,” not simply “detach[ed] objects from their context” as Goode posits.

To push this even further, we could look at the correlation between Robert Morris’s installation at the Green Gallery, New York, 1964 and the rock gardens at Ryōan-ji which Stanley discussed as having an innate relationship in space that cannot be formulated analytically (Western perspective) but must be drawn out naturally.

Robert Morris, Installation view of Show, 1964, New York, Green Gallery

Rock Gardens at Ryōan-ji, Kyoto, Japan

This may give us some speculative insight into the natural aversion that seems to take place when viewing Minimalist sculpture, for example Donald Judd’s installations in Marfa. If with a Western sensibility one extracted the objects out of space and viewed them as singular objects, they may not be very interesting, but contextually—their interaction with space, the floor, with light, and other bodies moving through the architecture—we can begin to view them with a different lens, one that perhaps a still image cannot reproduce fully, but only a pilgrimage can fulfill.

Donald Judd, Untitled, 100 works in mill aluminum, 1982-1986

Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas, Photo from Flickr.com

Study Finds Girls Go Through Manga Phase Earlier Than Boys

Makes sense.

Where You Go versus Where You've Been

Concerning the only other travels I've ever been on, this is about my trip to Italy in the summer after 11th grade. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the visits to museums and famous areas, but what made the whole thing really memorable was getting to know the people I was traveling with, learning Italian card games from our bus driver, and watching the scenery flit by in the fog. My particular Travel influence lies mostly in the closeups of scenery and moments, along with the motion in the last panel.

The Highlands

This is a map I used last Friday when I hiked the final 15 miles of the West Highland Way in Scotland. On the plane ride over to the UK, I read Travel and one thing that stood out to me was how subway maps, train maps, and even hiking maps really cannot show the true, specific details of a journey. To contrast the data-covered image of the map I added my own photos on top of the areas I took them in. What I like about Travel is the attention to small details that are only really noticed through quiet observation - how light reflects off a lake into a train car, how a window creates a shadow as the sun comes through it. Although my pictures are not really small details, they do show details that I never would have imagined from looking at the map alone, such as the large deforested area halfway through the trail or the numerous small, rocky streams that ran through the first large valley.

Transient Places

Transient Place, GIF, 2015.



This incessantly looping GIF is pulled from a video I took on a train to the airport in Tokyo last summer. I think this loosely references Yokoyama's novel Travel in situation, but also in the sense that the image is reduced to a near graphic quality, gesturing towards pure abstraction at times. I also enjoyed Botton's description of what he calls "transient places"—of being and not-being—trains, gas stations and airport waiting rooms as places of possible reflection and even meditation. For me, this incessant repetition or lack of beginning or end indicates the oscillation between what for one can be repetitive and meditative, and for others can be anxiety-ridden.

this is a screenshot of an instagram i took while driving up to chicago from new york to attend saic. i was extremely scared and nervous and felt overwhelmed by the trip and feeling of anticipation i was having about college. i think this picture really represents that although i was attempting to stay cool and calm and normal, I was actually extremely terrified and was doing whatever i could to maintain a sense of normalcy. To me this related to "Travel" because throughout the book the main characters are going on all these crazy trips and seeing all these new things, but the way the images are drawn still maintain a sense of simplicity and understanding.

Ground Zero

I originally went into the production of this song with only a general idea of the kind of song I wanted to write. It was originally a pop ballad about places changing; however, as I continued to play with sounds, I kept my focus off the intent and let the sounds take over instead. As I continued, I kept Yokoyama's Travel and this assignment in mind and thought of the process of creating this song as a journey. The song, now, is about taking a journey with a set destination and being thrown off course. I would still like to write lyrics to it, but I like how it stands on its own for now. If anything, I see it as a song I can walk to and a song that lets the music take over thought.

Zach

Clown

I was around kindergarten age. My dad, mom and older sister and me went to this amusement park together. I can never remember why we went there, how we went there, or how was the park, but all I can remember is this kid around my height dressed in a clown suit just stares at me the whole time, it was one of my worst memory that I can never forget.

I interpret how the book Travel always seems very busy and crowded, the figures seems have no expression most of the time    

I took this photo with Andrew Siann and Madison Jane Brotherton recently. This image is about travel through time and with no place particular in mind. Fields always represent a liminal space to me. Yokoyama's work made me want to travel to somewhere particular and hone in on the specifics of what makes that place active in the imagination. But instead I relied on characters to tell my narrative as they were more active to me than my environment. The end result was very unexpected but I think that the drama within the image reflects a psychological journey midway through its completion.

Map

My grandparents gave me an old map they used when they traveled around Japan (the places they went to are highlighted). I thought I'd share my scans for anyone interested in maps. 

US Military Films

I found these two US military films while I was researching the time period my grandparents lived in Japan (late '60s, early '70s) with the hopes of trying to better understand Japanese-American relations. When played side by side it is easy to see the tense political relationship between Japan and America in the mid-20th century. These propaganda films were made only a little over ten years apart but have dramatically different views. The newer film seems to blame the viewer for believing the information presented in the older film (though if people did believe it, it achieved its purpose?). However, both films could be seen as equally manipulative of Japanese culture, even though the tones are quite different (light-hearted vs. militaristic) - this is what is especially disturbing to me as a film major. 

Gurafiku by Ryan Hageman

Gurafiku is a self-described "collection of visual research surveying the history of graphic design in Japan" by Ryan Hageman, a graphic designer and graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The archive offers readers a rich resource for typologically understanding the collision of various design styles from Swiss design or International Typographic Style to Japanese illustration and influences from Ukiyo-e. While the resource spans a range of promotional materials, including movie posters and magazines, the website is lacking in quotidian ephemera—candy packaging, plastic bags and chopstick sleeves, which in my opinion offer a useful lens into the everyday within a culture. This could be a challenge for our journey!

Cube Puppies!

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the culture that gave us bonsai trees is doing this?

 Some brilliant dog grooming indeed!

MTV reports

 

 

the Souls of Insects

The BBC had an interesting item the week about the creation of a monument to the souls of insects killed by humans at a Buddhist Temple in Kamakura (the same town Satsuki Kawano report on in her study of Japanese ritual practices you were assigned!).

The sponsor of the monument at Kenjochi Temple  "hopes the monument will console the souls of the insects he has collected, and also send an environmental message. "I hope people will be fully aware what kind of an era it would be without insects."

Did I mention that my PhD in biology was spent in an insect lab which sacrificed hundreds of thousands of these creatures for research?  I actually built a small alter in honor of the insets we killed in that lab, placed there for the 6 years I spent (mainly butterflies, moths, and ants). Given that, this news item resonated with me!

When we go the tie Shingon Buddhist site, Koya-san, keep your eye out in the cemetery for a large monument to termites erected by a pest control company.


Lafcadio Hearn, one of the first westerners to live in Japan and write extensively about it in the 1800s, once observed:

‘In old Japanese literature, poems upon insects are to be found by thousands...What is the signification of the great modern silence in Western countries upon this delightful topic?’

What does this tell us about the Japanese sensibility ro sense of aesthetic? You might also enjoy these related links:
 
Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWBoYIXg7uk

Why the West Fears Insects while Japan Reveres Them

http://aeon.co/magazine/society/why-the-west-fears-insects-while-japan-reveres-them/http://aeon.co/magazine/society/why-the-west-fears-insects-while-japan-reveres-them/

Ms. Miyamoto again

Ariana Miyamoto was crowned as Miss Japan 2015 this year. Due to Ariana Miyamoto being biracial, she has received a bit of prejudices from the Japanese populus (much like Miss America 2014's Nina Davuluri).

In Japan, Miyamoto is known as the racial term "hafu," meaning "half." Miyamoto, however, embraces the term stating, "If I say I am 'Japanese' the reply would be: 'No, you can't be'. People will not believe that. But if I say I am 'hafu', people agree. There is no word like hafu outside Japan, but I think we need it here. In order for us mixed kids to live in Japan, it is indispensible and I value it."

Thought this was pretty interesting, relating to how Japan's culture is changing towards accepting racial diversity similarly to America's evolution as well.

Read more here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32957610


--Zach