Ann Merry's Blog

Looking for ways to become a more effective teacher

2009-02-09T14:26:00.006+09:00

Compiling a list of helpful links and notes here:
Cal State LA "Active Learning" suggestions
Increasing Student Participation in Class: Town Halls and Post-it Notes
Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) Active Learning Teaching Tips (A list of links)
Teaching Effectiveness Program (TEP) Resources Page from the University of Oregon
How to make a lesson plan from the UofO TEP pages
Increasing Student Participation Hand-out

Christmas Amaryllis

2009-01-11T05:08:00.003+09:00

Every year, a little before Thanksgiving, my Aunt Carol and Uncle Marv send all the members of the family a potted amaryllis bulb that blossoms sometime before or after Christmas. This year, our amaryllis unfolded rather late - just this week. Although we had to wait a little longer for it, it was worth it; she came out just beautifully:

new in my life

2008-12-30T05:26:00.011+09:00

I haven't posted here for a long time. The main reason is that about 10 months ago, such an important event happened that I devoted an entirely new blog to describing it: my first pregnancy and the subsequent delivery of my beautiful son, "VJ" on October 7.

I'm back now though, because I'm busy doing something that I want/need to keep notes on, but my "baby in progress" blog is not the right place to do it: I'm...

... starting a career search and preparing for job interviews.

So based on my preps for interviews coming up in a few days, I have been referring to a UCLA Career Center site that has lots of useful links to preparing for job interviews (be they phone, conference, or campus visit interviews).
But some of those links are no longer valid. Also, I've been conducting my own search and found additionally useful links that I want to keep track of here.

Also, if I have time, I will try to summarize my own individual experience, including personal advice and notes that I accumulating during the process. For now the additions will be pretty unorganized and unstructured, but bear with me. Hopefully I might organize them sooner or later... Unfortunately, some of these links are password protected on the Chronicle of Higher Ed... but moving on:

+ The Academic Job Search Handbook by Mary Heiberger and Julia Vick of UPenn Career Services
+ "The First Interview" insights from a veteran interviewer, Steven M. Cahn
+ job search experience of a grad student in history.
+ asking the right questions at interviews.
+ "AHA Interviews, redux"
+ Advice from the AHA itself on "Successful Strategies for Interviews at the Annual Meeting"
+ More "Interviewing Strategies" by Melanie Gustafson from the AHA
+ "Advice on Surviving the Job Register," the AHA Job Search/Hiring Center at its annual conference.

I don't think I'll ever beat this score

2008-04-29T09:57:00.003+09:00

My all-time best Tetris scores
Today, April 28, 2008

Level: 49
Lines: 391
Score: 557,946

Until today, my best ever was only half of that!
Dec 5, 2007
Level: 33
Lines: 238
Score: 248,922

Family Food Formulas

2008-02-07T07:34:00.000+09:00

I've been cleaning out my piles of miscellaneous "junk" lately and found some recipes that my auntie gave me recently. They have to be saved - but the most appropriate way to do it, I'm not really sure. Hence this blog posting, which might alternatively be titled "Family Flashbacks to Food"!

What I decided to do is to scan each of these recipes from my two grandmothers and my wicked-good-cook-for-an-aunt, Marlene, and post them here and on my Picasa web site - for all the world to enjoy. The first recipe, "Annie's muffins," is apparently a hand-me-down from my deceased paternal grandmother, Annabelle Hart Davis, who was famous in the family for making yummy cinnamon roles. She gave this recipe to my aunt decades ago, who then passed it on to me last Thanksgiving.

The second recipe is from my other grandmother, Maria Franco Varian, on my mom's side- who is still alive and very much still "kickin' it." She wasn't much of a cook - as most anyone in the family will tell you. But! she did make some pretty da%*m good lumpia - or Filipino egg rolls. My aunt was saving this recipe to pass on to family members like me also.

And finally, and Just who is this aunt that I keep talking about? It's my Auntie Marlene, who is known in the family for being a consummate chef and homemaker. She gave me her pipin' hot recipe for stroganoff, which she prepared for me, Scott, and the rest of the family a couple of months ago. She claims the secret to the recipe is in the wine sherry...

To see a closeup of any of these recipes, just click on the image.

"Essential Japan" A slide show that I created with Google and Picasa

2008-01-28T11:20:00.000+09:00

Look! at these beautiful pictures I took in Japan. I call this slide show "essential Japan" because it highlights images that are often considered "symbolic" or "typical" of Japanese culture.

If you click here, you can see an even better slide show that fills your entire computer screen. This is especially effective (and aesthetically pleasing) if you type the "f11" key on your computer keyboard in advance.

I have created this slide show because I am beginning the process of transporting all of the images that I have uploaded on my Flickr site over the years to a new site that I have just joined: Google/Picasa Web Albums. I am doing this, in turn, because I have become completely disappointed with Flickr's tactics for forcing its customers to renew (and pay some $25 each year) by holding their pictures hostage.

I would love to elaborate on this frustration, but for now, suffice to say that I am going to start trying out Google's Picasa web album site for storing and sharing my pictures with friends, family, and "the public". This web site offers 1GB of storage free of charge, and if customers want to buy more space, they can do so honestly and fairly without their pictures being taken away from them as a way of ensuring their business. So far I am impressed with the sites options - including making these awesome little slide shows that I just embedded here in my BLOG.

This is an explanation for my Dad and his friend Stansfield

2008-01-26T16:11:00.000+09:00

Los Angeles

Another way to take things offered on the web that are "open source" (that is "gadgets" or images" offered to the public for open use - and free of charge) is the way that I tried to describe to you in my last email...
There are many sites that have created HTML code that you simply copy and paste into your own blog.

For example, on the following web page
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/clocks/wtsclock001.aspx
users are given the option to use a clock that that website has created as "open source". It gives good instructions on how to do this... and, frankly, I think those instructions are better than any I could try to type here, so I won't try to elaborate.

But, as you can see, if you click on their link that says something like "get html code" - you will arrive at a new page that gives you two options. TO be honest, I'm not sure what the difference between the two options are - but I would just try to copy the first first, since that seems to be the most common choice.
---
OKay, I just paused for a minute to try it out myself, and yes, the first option is the better choice for "blogger," this host site that I use....
All I did to post this clock was to cut and paste the entire HTML code from that page into the box on my blog site where I'd normally type and upload the texts for a new post.

As you can see by this example, you can add text directly next to these embedded free source gadgets... And then voila, What you see is What you get (WYSIWYG)...

Hope this works for you guys!

They just keep sucking me in.

2008-01-16T15:38:00.001+09:00

Now, I have a myspace account.
Let's add that to my Flickr account, my picasa account, my youtube account, my opera blog, my facebook account, my weblog, and... OMG, if told you the others I 'd have to kill you. I finally signed up for the myspace account because there was too much information on that site that I wanted access to. Seems I couldn't view any of the pages created by some of my friends, colleagues and new associates, unless I joined.
I'm sick of joining these things though. THE Internet and all it's networking sites just keep on sucking me in. (I think the only network I 've still managed to stay off of is "linked In") Enough is enough already...

Make $25 for free - Open an account with ING Direct

2008-01-06T02:52:00.000+09:00

As part of our new year's resolution to save up more money, my significant other and I just opened a short-term emergency savings account with ING Direct. I did a lot of research and decided that ING was the bank for us based on its very high APY interest rates and its great customer reviews. There are other banks that offer better APY rates, but none seem to even begin to compare in terms of reputation for great security and customer service. In addition - and like many other on-line savings account - ING Direct is federally insured (member FDIC) and has no minimum balance fees or hidden charges. (FYI: ING Direct savings accounts currently offer 4.10% Annual Percentage Yield)

One of the bonuses of deciding to go with ING Direct was that we got $25 just for signing up. (How about that? We earned an interest rate of 10% interest in just one day!) In doing my research on different banks, I found out that ING Direct is offering a promotion that gives $25 to any new customer opening an account with $250 or more. The new customer simply has to be referred by another, current customer, like me, now!

If you would like to join and earn this great bonus, and start a new savings account for the new year, just click on the following link, and I will be your referee.

Open a new account with ING Direct.
(Incidentally, bonuses start earning interest upon account opening, but are unavailable for withdrawal for 30 days. This offer is valid through 2/4/2008.)

By the way, if I happen to sound like a walking Mouthpiece for ING Direct, I suppose I have turned into one (the horror). So far I am very happy with my account, as I have earned my $25 already, just for knocking off a new year's resolution that I would have done anyway - even without the bonus.

My Dad's New Blog

2008-01-04T11:28:00.000+09:00

In anticipation of another globe-trotting extravaganza with my mom, my athletic and literary father (aka "Bernie the Bard") has been busy lately learning how to blog. He has even posted an impressive number of poems (31) so far - all uploaded within the last 3 days apparently. Congratulations Dad, your blog looks great! I especially like this entry about me and Scott! And I like your poem about "an old couple" too.

Here is a sample of one of my dad's new poems... Evidence that he might have to forsake his old name for a new one, to the tune of something like "Bernie the Blogger."

TO BE A BLOGGER

While I'm still a jogger,
I'll become a blogger.
And I'm sure there'll come a day
When I'll be obliged to say
"I'm a blogger, not a jogger."

I love my nephew

2007-11-10T13:54:00.001+09:00

This week I am in cold cold cold (well, actually not so cold, they tell me) Wisconsin, to visit my 6-month-old nephew, whom I like to call "Jack-san."

My little nephew amazes me - It's hard to believe that babies can be so busy just inching slowly around, drooling, scratching and sucking on everything. For such a little guy who has so much growing up to do, he astonishes me with the way his smile and laughter are so highly developed.

Among the things I have witnessed Jack accomplish this week are some awesome stretches on his back, touching both his hands to both of his respective feet at the same time. Jack also crawls, especially if he is interested in putting something shiny in his mouth. His standing skills are highly polished, and sometimes he looks like he is just going to skip a "proper" baby crawl and just start walking to get what he wants.

Another big "first" for Jack this week was eating yams, his second solid food, after some sort of gerber baby rice porridge. I never knew feeding a baby could be so messy - I would rather, to be totally honest, change some stinky poopy diapers than try to feed a baby yams. Very difficult stuff, let me tel you.

Finally, I have also had the honor to witness Jack suck on apples, which is also a big deal considering he has only eaten mama's milk, formula, yams, and rice porridge in his life. Babies are so hip.

Some of my Pickies from the AIDS Walk

2007-10-23T06:03:00.000+09:00

To get a different selection of pictures, just hit "refresh" on you browser.

www.flickr.com

annmerry's LA AIDS Walk 2007 photoset

I'm raising money for the 2007 LA AIDS Walk

2007-10-20T01:10:00.000+09:00

This year I decided to participate in something that I've been wanting to do for a long time: walk in the 2007 Los Angeles AIDS Walk. ( I have also wanted to do one of the AIDS Bike Rides too, but that involves a lot more planning and prep... I'll do it someday...)

My awesome cousin, Jeff Shelby, was one of my inspirations for this walk. He participates every year up in San Francisco, and he diligently raises A LOT MORE money than I ever will. (I think he has a lot more friends than me!) Some other people who have inspired me are Kevin Walsh (whom I sponsored in the AIDS Bike ride EONS ago) and another friend of a friend named Glen Rutter (whom I also sponsored once for the AIDS Bike ride).

Click Here to Donate

Given the fact that I am a lowly PhD student, I am obviously not a wealthy person - and neither are many of my friends. So when I decided to do the walk, I didn't feel very hopeful about raising a lot of money. So, I decided to make up for the lack of monetary donations by starting a team through the UCLA History Grad Student Association (HGSA) - hoping that that might raise more awareness and support for the whole event.

The idea was very fortunate - because through the team, we've thus far managed to recruit 9 walkers AND we've topped the goal of $1000 to raise as a group. Here (above) is a thermometer showing how much our team has raised so far...

Click Here to Donate

I am super happy about this. This second thermometer (above, again) shows how much I have been able to raise individually through some awesome family and friends. (Thank you Mom, Dad, Bro Eric, Jeff, Greg, Aunt Carol, Uncle Marv, Aunt Marlene and Uncle Manuel, Aunt Teri and Uncle John, and Aunt Janet ... Also thanks to my friends Mia, Nick, Darin, Peggy, Angel and Matt, Helena, and Vinh... ooooooh! I know I must be leaving someone really important out - I'm so sorry) This amount was added to the amount shown above in the group thermometer. (Or to put it another way, the amount shown in the group thermometer includes what I have raised in addition to what the other members -whom I recruited! - on the HGSA team have raised.)

google calendar - click on DECEMBER !!

2007-10-14T07:57:00.000+09:00

This is Scott's and My Christmas schedule. To see the schedule, you have to click on the arrow below to move the calendar to the month of December.

Reporting on a new all time high

2007-10-10T04:50:00.000+09:00

Dec 5, 2007
Level: 33
Lines: 238
Score: 248,922

Dec 4, 2007
Level: 30
Lines: 203
Score: 197,850

My New Record Tetris Scores are in:
October 10, 2007
Level: 22
Lines: 121
Score: 137,843

Seven - or Eight? - reasons to be depressed tonight

2007-10-01T16:04:00.000+09:00

I know I am not invincible. And I know slowly I am getting older by the mili-second. But tonight, something happened that made me contemplate my mortality more than usual.... and I am just dog gum sad about it... Just now, five minutes ago, I just plucked seven - or eight (I lost count, actually, after I hit six) silver hairs from my temple without even making an effort. They just stood out, bright as day, glittering for all to see, as I massaged my temples a little.

Now i have friends my age that have discernible greys, and it doesn't seem abnormal. I don't even blink - or even feel sorry for them. But that was them, not me, until now... I 've heard of people going grey in one year's time span, and i am seriously starting to think that could happen to me. Just this year - maybe in the past five months, I have begun to notice greys sprouting out from my eyebrows too!! (oh the horror)... I am hoping that this confession-like soliloquy about my greying temples will some how scoop me out of this deep depression that I feel I have sunk into... that my own mortality is totally and utterly out of my control. Woe is the aging woman... How sad How sad I am (sniff sniff sniffffffff).

Oh, and one last reason to be totally sad... I t hink i am addicted to Tetris. How abominable is that? ... A greying Tetris-adoring addict.

Never make entries any more

2007-09-29T08:08:00.000+09:00

I blame it on my dissertation. It's pretty pathetic I know, but feel bad whenever I spend time thinking about or writing anything other than my dissertation.
But I realize that I never post to this blog anymore.
So, just for the record, I DO waste time often - although it's rarely in the form of (efforts at) creative writing. Why just today I scored my highest score of all time on Tetris.

So as to document my amazing results:
Level: 23
Lines: 134
Score: 104,663

Just to contextualize this tremendous achievement, I should add that my usual score is under 10,000. And before today, my highest every score was around 30,000! I start playing now at level 10. Thanks to the dulling effects of my dissertation, I am becoming pro at this game.

Japanese/Western Calendar year converter

2007-08-21T13:16:00.000+09:00

This is awesome!!! Click here for a Japanese calendar converter.
I tried to paste it into this blog, but it didn't work too well. I guess in the name of honoring the copy rights of the original site which put it up, I'll just direct you to the original now.
For me, as a historian of Japan, this is worth putting in my frame on the side of this blog so that I can get to it immediately in the future...

Today I am writing about Voice, Authenticity, Agency, and the Subaltern

2007-07-17T10:33:00.000+09:00

So, in honor of that attempt, I am keeping a note of some of the very useful websites that I have found. These have been awesome resources so far... and I need a way to figure out how to come back to them in the future (as I move around Japan and switch computers a lot this summer)
+ On Logocentrism and Derrida
+ On Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?"
+ Glossary of Spivak terms
+ A "think" piece on "The Desiring voice." According to Waterstone, the authur of this piece, the following scholars have written about issues of power, agency and views of self - sometimes in relation to the voice: Britzman, 1989; Grumet, 1990; Ellsworth, 1992; Orner,1992; Finke, 1993; Otte, 1995; Kramer-Dahl, 1996; Lensmire, 1998. I need to read up on these people.
+ Dictionary of Postmodern Terms

Review #2: The Harbor House Cafe in Sunset Beach

2007-07-04T07:03:00.000+09:00

"Serving surfers since 1939": The Harbor House Cafe. (562) 592-1425.
16341 Pacific Coast Highway
California, 90742

Getting there: Even though we took the car from Scott's place in Huntington Beach - probably about 5 miles away - it would have been a nice little bike ride to get there. Along the way, the PCH passes through a beautiful 300-acre wetlands reserve (known officially as the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve) where a biker can easily park and enjoy a quick stroll...

Once we got there, parking was really a pain in the patuttie since the cafe had practically no spaces (see pictures!). After going around the block several times, and then getting beaten out by an oncoming car ... we ended up going across the street to a strip mall parking lot. That was fine, but we had to cross a series of grassy knolls and crosswalks, one bridging the PCH (kind of a scary), to finally get over there.

Service: B+/A-. I give the place LOTS of extra points for simply offering free coffee in a coffee dispenser at the door. This is an extra nice bonus since the place is very popular and crowded, and more than likely you will have to sign up and wait a while before you get to go inside and chow down.

The waitress we had was nice and pretty efficient - but this wouldn't be an honest and fair review if I neglected to note that she DID forget to get us some requested hot sauce at a very crucial moment: just when we were on the verge of digging into our omelettes... Fortunately I was able to grab some from the next table without causing a stir.

Atmosphere: Very cozy, old-fashioned, and beachy (of course). Like I said, you can sit there and enjoy your jo while you are waiting - on a nice shady porch with wooden benches painted festively red ... Or you can run to the joint next door, like we did, to grab the LA Times and possibly play a game of Ms. PacMan!

Once your name is called, the hostess (ours was wearing a flapper costume/uniform - cute, but whatever) will probably lead you deep deep into the restaurant. Since the cafe looks like a tiny dot that would seat about 6 from the road, we couldn't believe how big the place was. As my boyfriend said, he thought we passed the steam room where they were shoveling coal, because we did go deep into the bowels of the restaurant.

Incidentally, in addition to the flapper hostess, I also saw a waitress with a homecoming queen crown on. (I guess this a place where your dreams can come true.... or at least the employees dreams can come true there.)

We ended up on this cute shady yellow porch with electric fans dangling from the ceiling. The cafe boasts having a heated porch, which we thought was funny, because it really should have been more air-conditioned. It was a pretty hot that day which resulted in that back room feeling somewhat uncomfortably hot and stuffy. There were strange decorations all over the wall - seemed like rows and rows of cards from an old type of game like bingo - that were whimsical but confusing...

Food: There was a huge selection that was very very good and served in large quantities too. Of the choice of 25 different omelettes alone, Scott had "the California Omelette" an AWESOME concoction with nice big chuncks of avocados, sausage, bacon and cheese. Apparently there were also tomatoes inside, but I didn't taste them - no loss on my part though (tomatoes, bleck!)... I had one of their many "light and healthy choices" with yummy turkey bacon and a stack of pancakes.

There was a lot of food - so much we had enough to take home for lunch. (And I was stuffed after both meals!) After we finished eating, we took a nice little walk over by Huntington Beach Harbor (strangely hidden behind the ugly strip mall and parking lot) where we discovered a whole exotic world of yachts, boat owners, Sunday drinkers, and gondolas. All-in-all it was a very nice breakfast outing.

My first restaurant review: Mao's Kitchen in Venice Beach

2007-06-26T04:48:00.000+09:00

This week-end I decided it MIGHT be fun to write reviews of the restaurants my boyfriend and I have been going to. Lately we decided to try to get out more and try all kinds of new places. So to start out with, yesterday we went to …

Mao's Kitchen – 1512 Pacific Ave. Venice, CA 90291 - one block from Venice Beach.

Getting there: We rode our bikes from West LA (my apartment is a couple blocks from Westwood, near the UCLA campus.) Only taking about 30 minutes, it was an easy ride – especially once we made it down to the bike lanes that line the beaches of Santa Monica, Venice and Marina Del Rey.

Service: “C” for “average”…that is, not especially bad, NOR especially good either. The lady who served us was in a big fat hurry, and so, as my boyfriend said, she was “not a very good listener.” Even though she was in a hurry, it took 4-e-ver for our food to get there. Also, for what it's worth, the entirely non-Asian/predominantly Latino staff created a rather off-kilt sensation amidst the so-called “Chinese proletariat” cafeteria atmosphere.

Atmosphere: Quirky, clever and fun. The menu was amusingly original, for example, offering dishes such as the “Eggplant Pamphlet” (five eggplant-bound volumes filled with shrimp or tofu propaganda), the “People’s potsticker,” and the “Model citizen noodle soup.” Rounding out the sense of our sharing a "workers’" dinner at the commune were the restaurant’s long rows of wooden tables and benches where we customers sat shoulder to shoulder awaiting food for the masses.

Food: What I liked best about this “Chinese” restaurant was that the food was definitely not typically the type of Chinese food you get in United States. That is – there was little to no taste of MSG, and the food did not seem as oily or rich as what I might normally expect. The restaurant seemed to live up to its adverts, which promise “country-style Chinese cooking with Red memories”- although, given the prices, I am not sure what was so truly “Red” about it. If they meant "Red" for communist cheap - then they were way off base. But if they meant you'll see Red because the prices are kinda ridiculous - then maybe. Especially given that we just wanted a snack/lunch, it was a little "pricey." On the other hand ... and to be fair, really... given the gigantic quantity of food we got, it WAS really worth it.

We ordered two noodle dishes (one was technically under the soup list, but anyway…) which were both excellent: #7a, the model citizen noodle soup with beef (long long long noodles), and #14, Bock choy over chow fun with chicken. Yummmm…! I'll definitely go back for sure – but next time I will bring a snack to tide myself over for the long wait until my food gets to the table.

My Brother the Daddy Homemaker

2007-06-14T10:18:00.000+09:00

Cooking with Baby
Jack
Originally uploaded by
Eric and Kim

As a women's studies kind of chick, I think this photo is just AWESOME. What an example for the "modern" man. My brother is a role model!

I fell in love with this picture a couple of weeks ago when Eric put it up on his flickr site. At the time I had a hard time getting it up on my blog - but I never forgot about it, and so came back to it today.

As for updates on baby Jack (whom I like to refer to these days as "Jock-san" a la japonaise): driving all the way from Virginia to Wisconsin, my mom and dad just visited little Jack last week. Eric says Mom is just fantastic with the baby. I wish I could have been there to see my parents as grandparents for the first time.

Eric says that Jack is starting to smile, which, I can tell, just delights my big brother. He says you can tickle him and he will give you a little grin. It won't be long now before he will be able "to smile on demand," as the proud father puts it.

Visiting Violet. My great aunt? or my Great-Aunt?

2007-06-05T02:16:00.001+09:00

My Auntie Violet, 97 years old
Originally uploaded by annmerry

Over the week-end on Saturday, I paid a very enjoyable visit to my great aunt, Auntie Violet, a remarkable woman of 97 years. Auntie Violet is the younger sister of my maternal grandfather, Arthur Varian.

I went with my boyfriend Scott, who kindly and pleasantly agreed to drive me there. It was a great coincidence to find out recently that my Auntie only lives 8 miles down the road from Scott's apartment in Huntington Beach -so the visit was not only "hyper" convenient, but a MUST.

When I told Scott thanks for taking me, he said "Of course, we're going to be elderly some day too!" Proving just how amenable he was to accompanying me, as we were heading home afterwards, Scott said to me, "That was fun." Apparently he enjoyed the visit with Auntie as much as I did. (What an awesome guy!) (hehe smile)

But back to Aunt Violet. At age 97, she is doing remarkably well. When we showed up to her house, she came outside to greet us and directed Scott how to park his car better! We spent about three hours together - she brought out all of her old photos of the family - including pictures of literally hundreds of extended family members living all over California and the Philippines. I was pretty overwhelmed by all of the relatives...

Scott talking with Arthur before we say good-bye

One of the pleasant surprises was the unexpected visit of Violet's son Arthur, my mom's first cousin. I had not seen him or Violet for 15 years. I told him that my parents would be visiting in September and that I hoped we could have a small reunion then. After Arthur showed up, Auntie pulled out some apple pie, made coffee and served donuts also. I showed her some pictures of my parents, Grandma (Arthur Varian's wife, Maria, who is now living in the Philippines), and of my new baby nephew. I had an extra photo of Jackson which I gave to her, which seemed to make her very happy. We wrote his name and "Helen Varian's grandson" on the back so that she could remember who that new face in the long family line was.

Among other things, I learned that Aunt Violet is the oldest girl of Morris Varian and Ana Flamor Varian. She was their third child and six years younger than my grandfather. She confirmed what everyone often says - that my grandfather was not very talkative - and so apparently, he didn't talk much to his younger siblings. I also learned that Aunt Violet moved to the United States with her husband, a surgeon, Dr. Bringas, in 1952. Her husband passed away only fourteen years later in 1966. The family lived for some time in Gary, Indiana where Dr. Bringas worked for the American Steel Company....

Aunt Violet was quite animated talking about her family and the past! I remember thinking that I wanted to get everything she was saying on video. I did have my video-cam with me, but I ended up deciding not to bring the camera out because I didn't want Violet to hesitate or stop telling us the stories so vividly. I wasn't sure how she would react to the idea of being taped - and I was expecially concerned that she might not stay so candid if I did try to record our conversation... I hope I can visit her again soon to try to talk to her some more - next time for sure, with the camera ON!

With My Sweety Pie in Milwaukee

2007-05-29T15:17:00.000+09:00

More news from Papa E about Baby Jack

2007-05-26T02:43:00.001+09:00

Great news from Wauwatosa!

Baby Jack has busted through the 9lb barrier with style, now weighing in at a healthy 9lbs, 6oz. We visited the doctor again this morning to make sure Jack was still on track (worried about a few tiny things that appear to be nothing), and the doctor thinks he’s doing just fine. Baby Jack’s latest activities include sleeping a lot, staring at lights, burping, farting and flailing his legs and arms with intense vigor.

I’ll have some more photos posted to the flickr site by Monday afternoon.

Love,

- Eric & Kim

I'm Published

2007-05-17T13:11:00.000+09:00

Hoorah Shmorah. I just wrote a very short little article for the UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) newsletter. Oooh I'm special. Voi-ci the important links:
A. The index for all articles in the entire CSW Update (published today). And...
B. My article in the magazine.
C. And... last but not least The PDF version

I just joined Technorati

2007-05-17T03:19:00.000+09:00

It seemed like an awesome site for managing blog favorites - allowing bloggers to do many of the things that Flickr allows its members to do - like, making links to one's favorite blogspots/pictures... In order to join, I am posting this link now:
Technorati Profile
And this button:

And this button too:

Video Tour of CERN, "The coolest place on earth."

2007-05-16T02:00:00.000+09:00

Please click below to see a pretty cool tour of CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory. I visited CERN for a week with colleagues from Japan and the US during the summer of 2006. We conducted oral history interviews there.

Click To Play

"An exclusive tour of the underground accelerator at CERN led by the scientists who work there." Video published by www.seedmagazine.com

Jackson in Pink

2007-05-10T01:05:00.000+09:00

Here are some more shots of my gorgeous darling nephew. I recommend clicking on these images to get an even closer view of my angel-baby.
In one week I will get to meet this little guy! I will be flying out to meet him for the first time from May 21-26... My sister-in-law's sister took these shots as well as many more here this past week-end.

My Collage of the Truly Precious One

2007-05-03T16:08:00.000+09:00

More News from my Brother, "Papa E"

Hey y’all.

Here’s the latest on Jackson as he now transitions into Day #4.

Jackson had a very tough night last night… He did very well yesterday afternoon and early evening, and seemed to be “on his way” – eating regularly, sleeping regularly, content, relaxed, at ease… But when we tried to feed him last night at maybe 10pm, he refused and slowly got crankier and crankier… By midnight, he was completely discombobulated – whaling, screaming, thrashing, red – non-stop. This continued, off-and-on, for at least half of the night. I’ve seen crying babies, but I’ve never seen anything this prolonged or intense…

I will say that I was very impressed by Baby Jack’s endurance. He was working sooo hard last night… As of this morning, he hadn’t eaten in 12 hours, but was still completely discombobulated… 14 hours, still no eating, and still intermittent screaming and whaling… Finally, we decided to get innovative and try to leverage modern technology – Similac and the magic vibrating chair…

Fortunately, he sucked down an ounce of Similac in a flash. That 1oz has put a few calories and a bit of fluid in his stomach, and has completely re-set his clock and disposition. He and mom are now fast asleep upstairs. We moved up our next doctors appointment to 11am to make sure there’s not something too, too wrong.

- E.D.

I can't get enough of this little guy

2007-05-02T10:52:00.000+09:00

I LOVE HIM! I WANT TO MEET HIM! I WANT TO HOLD HIM! I WANT TO SQUEEZE HIM!
HOW CUTE IS THIS?????!!!!!!!!!!??!!??!

(This is Jack on his way home from the hospital!)

Updates on "the truly precious one," Komea’i’omakamae

2007-05-02T05:38:00.000+09:00

The following are updates from Eric on baby Jack. I am simply cutting and pasting his letters, since (I humbly think) they need to be preserved forever and shared with all...

Monday, April 30, 2007

Hi Everybody!

It’s nearly 7:00pm Monday night, and Baby Jack is sprawled out lengthwise along my thighs as I try to catch up on e-mails from work. He’s sleeping lightly, but squirming every so often. Also, just in the last few minutes, he’s fired off a few solid gas leaks – a very nice sign of progress since we didn’t seen much GI activity in the first 24 hours.

Well, I think we’ve reached a very new steady state level with mom and baby. Kim is getting her first real nap now since delivering Baby Jack 40 hours ago. She really only slept 1-2 hours on the first night after delivering, and maybe she slept 3-4 hours on Sunday night. Kim is still a bit sore and stiff, but her spirits are great.

And Baby Jack, I think, has fully figured out how to get a full meal. I was just a little bit worried about Baby Jack as we approached the first 24 hour mark and then rounded into the beginning of the 2nd day. He wasn’t really eating that much, but he just had his second huge meal in 2 hours. I think we’ll be into a regular pattern of eating and sleeping soon enough.

It’s interesting to get to know Baby Jack. He seems to be very strong, especially his arms and neck. He likes to keep his arms up and close to his face which can be problematic when we’re trying to get him into the feeding position. I think he’ll figure out how to suck his thumb very soon. Also, he likes to be held. I think he’ll be a very self-sufficient guy soon enough, but for now, he does better if he’s close to mommy or daddy.

By the way, Grandma Bobby picked a middle name… Komea’i’omakamae… which means the truly precious one.

"Update #2 on Baby Jack"
May 1, 2007

Latest update on Baby Jack… Good news! We’re finally home after 3 days at the hospital!

Baby Jack has mild jaundice, so we’re going to have a close eye on that – we will visit the doctor every 24 hours until it clears. Also, he seems a little sluggish today, presumably worn out this morning’s procedures (vaccination, “circumspection”, etc.) and pain killers.

My guess is that Kim got 4 hours of sleep last night. I’m pretty tired, and I didn’t even have to tend to Baby Jack at all last night.

Mom and Jack are about to take their first nap together at home, and I’m going to run into the office for 90 minutes or so. Life is good!

- E

My new beautiful nephew: Announcing Baby Jackson

2007-05-01T05:33:00.000+09:00

On his first day of life, Jackson exhibited personality qualities similar to his mom, dad, and even Auntie A.M. Just have a look:
(And in the meantime, does anyone who knows HTML have any suggestions on how I can get rid of this big huge gaping space right here?)

	This is Jackson - already deep in thought - perhaps like his Auntie A.M.
	This is Jackson saying "Hi" to everyone - already extremely sociable and friendly, just like his Daddy, Eric.
	And last but not least, this is flexible Jackson, just like his Mommy Kimmy, the former gymnast. ... Or, is he just preparing his first "warrior two" pose? Already on his way to becoming a master yogi.

Picture of the Week (Although Its Actually 2 Weeks Old)

2007-04-21T15:22:00.000+09:00

I think this is just a fantastic picture of my roommate, Darin Stephanov, and me. The colors are a little odd, but it's a nice composition with the two of us roomies looking quite happy and proud of ourselves because we are about to have a free dinner at the Getty. I just downloaded it today from my camera...

Darin was my lovely "dinner date" (sorry Scott, but you backed out - wink!!!) two week-end's ago. As a member of the organizing committee for the Mephistos Conference, I was able to attend a reception for the student speakers, organizers and sponsors. In addition to dining for free at one of the most beautiful spots in LA, I was also able to bring a guest. Inviting my roommate was a great choice, as this guy LOVES going out, dining on fine (and not so fine) food, and enjoying LA's premier "hotspots".

For such a memorable dinner, I surprisingly don't remember very well what the main entree was - I think it was some kind of white fish. But the "to-die-for" item on the menu that caught everyone's eye was dessert: goat cheese cheesecake covered with a rasberry marmelade. Yum ...for most people, that is - I happen to particularly dislike goat cheese, so I gave most of my portion to my buddy Darin (who has the biggest sweet tooth I have ever seen!)

Even though it was a little cloudy that evening, the views at the Getty were - as always - MAGNIFICENT!

sweet (x 10 x10 x10)

2007-04-02T15:35:00.000+09:00

a picture is worth a thousand words. maybe that's why this one says "sweet, sweet, sweet" a thousand times to me...

Matahum House of Beauty: My Personal Ethnology of a Pedicure in the Philippines

2007-04-01T13:13:00.000+09:00

This is my first homemade video made with my Everio camcorder and the iMovie program on my Mac. I shot these clips while I was in the Philippines last February visiting my grandma.

Stay tuned for more videos of my rellies and local customs in the Philippines. My next video: Cockfighting on Siquijor Island...

mooooooo-ving this picture from Switzerland via Japan back to LA

2007-02-04T17:39:00.000+09:00

For the next couple of days I will be staying at Sokendai University where I was living last year in Japan. Since I have gotten here, I have been finding all these old things that I left. It's really fun. For example, I wanted coffee this morning, so I went to the kitchen, and I found a container of instant coffee that I had left for other people to enjoy. Then later today I wanted a big glass of milk. Most glasses in Japan are about 1/3 the size of glasses that I am used to back in the US. So, you can imagine how happy I was when I found a big, old glass that I had bought just for these occassions (when I am craving gargantuan quantities of drink). The glass was waiting for me right where I had left it in the 3rd floor kitchen...

I've also been going through the computer I used to use when I was working on the oral history project here, and I just found this picture that I thought I had lost somehow. I don't have a copy of it anywhere on my computers at home, so I was so happy to find it here on this one. Since I really don't have a better way of getting the picture back to the States with me, I am posting it here for safe keeping until I get home to LA. The picture was taken in Switzerland last summer when I bought a ton of cow backpacks. I thought they were so cute that I bought one for all my favorite little cousins, nieces, and friends. At the time, I was so happy with my new purchases that my friends, Mia and Kenji, were laughing at me and took my picture. It really is a nice memory.

This is the link to my itinerary in Japan this month

2007-01-30T06:32:00.000+09:00

https://www.virtuallythere.com/new/reservations.html?host=1W&pnr=1WNCDJPOM21E&name=DAVIS&language=0&email=2

sNOw Way!!! - Hail in West Los Angeles .... Snowplows in Malibu

2007-01-18T18:11:00.000+09:00

Exhibit A: Proof of ice pellots hailing down on the lawn across the street from our balcony.

Today I saw some of the wierdest weather of my life in Southern California. Here in West L.A. we had a surprise hail storm. Pellots of ice the size of marbles were coming down in buckets.

The entire experience was surreal. Before the storm started, there was little warning. It was your typical sunny and blue skies most of the day, but then around 4:00 pm I started to hear the rumbling of thunder. The sounds of the skies were completely atypical for this region - they reminded me of the thunder one hears before a summer storm on the east coast.

Exhibit B: This is a picture of hail landing on our balcony chairs. (please click this image for a much better view - lots of detail!)

When I heard the noise, I looked out the window and saw that the sky above was dark. But in contrast to that, just off in the distance, about 10 miles away, I could see the typical clear, bright sapphire skies and sunshine hanging over downtown L.A.

When the hail started to come down I was mesmerized. Never had I seen such a thing in L.A. Then, as if to testify to the chaos, I started to hear sirens from several directions and helicopters flying above. I went to the balcony and started taking pictures of the enigmatic images I was sure to never again see in this lifetime.

Exhibit C: The crazy sky about 15 minutes after the storm had subsided.

After the storm had calmed, about an hour later, I looked out the window and saw another surreal sight. There were two children across the street searching for the few remains of frost on the ground to make snowballs. Trust me, to the naked eye, you could not see any left over snow - it had all melted that quickly. But these kids - by scouring the street corners - managed to pack up golf-ball-sized snowballs to throw at one another. Making the site even stranger was the fact that one of the children was wearing shorts, and neither of them had on winter coats...

Later I heard on the news that it had snowed in Malibu - the first time in 20 years. I heard the Malibu town authorities were struggling to find a snowplow to clear the the Malibu canyon roads. Adding to the chaos here in southern Cal, highway 5 was apparently closed down for the rest of the evening.

We had been experiencing a "cold snap" these past few days - causing some rare people (like myself) to bring out their winter coats from back east. Proving how atypically cold it has been here lately, this past week-end when I went to eat out at a restaurant in Huntington Beach, I saw that every customer in the entire restaurant was eating with his or her coat on. (It was too cold inside to take them off - heat was insufficient for those temperatures which dared skirt below 45 degrees!)

The craziest thing about this whole story to me is that only about a week ago, I was walking around the UCLA campus in a spaghetting-strap tank top, cursing how the weather - at the time, in the upper 80s - was making me "perspire" in the middle of January...

my first "you tube video" featuring my mom and little nephews

2006-12-25T02:10:00.001+09:00

The parents, Eric and Kim, and ... little ole Me, Auntie Ann Marie

2006-12-25T01:02:00.000+09:00

Since I have been busy uploading sonograms of my little nephew, Jackson, all the while commenting on WHO thinks WHOM the baby looks like... I decided to post two of my favorite pictures of my brother and his wife as references. The first picture of my brother, Eric, was taken when he was running in a pretty big triathalon down in Florida last month, in November 2006.

The shot of Kim was taken a couple of years back, before she met my brother, when she trecked the Camino de Compostela in Spain (something I'd love to do myself someday).

Now, you be the judge! Do you see more of a resemblance in the baby with Eric or with Kim? What do you think - do you also see that strong forehead and jawline in the sonograms that Kim and Mom are talking about? Or do you happen to see Kim's lovely Polynesian smile in the diagram of the little tyke's first grin? I'd love to hear your opinions and impressions.

....Or perhaps you just might just see that the baby bears the biggest resemblance to me, beautiful Auntie Ann Marie! I couldn't help but just throw this picture of the three of us in too - also as a reference - and also one of my favorites - taken right when Eric and Kim first started dating, back around Christmas 2002.

my baby nephew, Jackson

2006-12-24T13:49:00.000+09:00

About four months ago I uploaded a picture of my little nephew as a newly conceived embryo. Now, I have just gained access to the latest pictures of the little guy via my brother and his wife's flickr site.

Now some people might not be used to seeing such intimate pictures - so I apologize to you if this goes against your sensibilities.
To tell you the truth, I'm not used to seeing these types of pictures either, and well, it does feel a little unorthodox to publish them all over the net. BUT, considering that my brother and his wife had them up first, well, I guess I'm not transgressing any of their boundaries. As for me, I think they are right, we need to celebrate the new life of any baby - especially that of my own nephew, who is due this May.

So for now, I have three comments about these pics. First, I think it is funny that based on these pictures alone, my mom is convinced that the little guy looks just like my brother. I don't see it, but apparently Kim, my sister-in-law, sees it too. Mom says it is because the baby has a big head - as does my brother. Eric says, that, while the latter might be true, the kid is, after all, only a fetus... So the little tyke is bound to sport a giant noggin. Even if his parents were pinheands (which they are not), the little baby would be nothing but head at this early stage in his life...

I don't know what to believe. And I haven't had a chance to ask Kim yet why she thinks the little thing resembles my big bro either... I am curious though, so I'll do that tomorrow. [Note from the next day: I asked Kim today why, and she said that the baby in the pictures seems to have sharper features - a stronger forehead and jaw line - similar to my brothers.]

But on to comment number two: I'm not sure WHO added those wierd notes, detailing where the baby's arms, head, and actual smile are ... I think it's a little creepy (forgive me), but anyway... I'll try to get more details on this artistic license tomorrow too - and then I'll report back to you. [Note: It was Kim who added the diagrams -which makes me feel bad for saying it was "creepy". I had just assumed my brother had done that...]

In the meantime, here is comment number three: if you haven't already cross-referenced these images on Eric and Kim's flickr site, I think it should be pointed out that the darker, undiagrammed pictures above are of the baby's 2-month ultrasounds. The two pictures below, which are a little more crimson in tone, are ultrasounds at 16 weeks (so... uh... I guess at 4 months?)... Cool cool. cool.

Rocking with K T Tunstall and James Denton

2006-12-08T18:30:00.000+09:00

What an amazing evening I had tonight. I went with a friend, Andrew, a post-doc at UCLA, to a concert by K T Tunstall at the Key Club down on Sunset, and it was AWESOME. What a talented artist!

Then, when the concert ended - I ran into James Denton from Desperate Housewives. I couldn't believe that - I watch DHW religiously, so when I saw him, it was like looking at an old friend! James Denton looks EXACTLY in real life like he does on the show. I had just gone to the restroom at the end of the show, and so I was coming back up the stairs into the main room where the crowd was thinning out and people were milling around. When I got to the top of the stairs, there I was: standing face to face with James Denton. I could have had a conversation with him.
I was just a little in shock, so all I could do was look at him straight in the eyes. He looked at me staring at him for about 5 seconds and then turned to go about his business. I stood there, continuing to (discretely?) stare and walk towards my friend, Andrew, when I almost fell over another small set of stairs leading down to the main floor. Dang!!!

Then I came home and found out about the funny web site, hornymanatee.com, while hanging out watching Conan with my roomie Darin. Conan is indeed very strange and very funny!

I was nothing but 'White Trash':Halloween Pictures 2006

2006-12-06T02:19:00.000+09:00

OKay okay, it is already December, and I am only now getting around to posting my pictures from Halloween on line. It took me forever - but in my defense, I have to say that it's Time Warner's fault. That company SUX! They are awful. It took them two months to NEVER come around to install wireless at our apartment, despite our repetetive phone calls to them - where we were transferred, put on hold for 15 minutes at a time, and finally told that there was nothing that they could do.

To make a long story short, they really irked me (to put it mildly - I HATE THEM really), we finally dropped them and went for DSL, and now that I've gotten that off my chest, I will finally describe how my buddies and I spent Halloween this year.

This year I decided to dress up as "White Trash". As my brother explained to me, my costume theme was a double entendre: I just dressed up in a lot of white trash, and with a couple of decorations made references to the poor stereotype of "white trash" - hicks, unrefined rednecks, etc - in this country. Wow, this costume really made me aware how much trash out there is actually white. There is a ton of it - paper cups, napkins, styrofoam, plastic utensils, plastic bags... the list goes on and on.

More later about the costume and my friend Sammy's amazing and ab-fab assistance in helping me put the trash together in an actually fashionable way (?!)... for now I will just write that my party buddies Sam and Darin, were a woopie cushion and a little doggie (?), respectively. We went downtown to an awesome party in a loft. One of these pictures has Sam dancing with his friend and our link to the host, the host's friend, Borchin (a cave man). Another picture has this random wearwolf named Pete sitting on the woopie cusion Sam for a photo op.

As for some of the other people in the pictures - there is Gustavo and Carolyn. Gustavo is a classmate of ours - I met him through Sam - who studies history of science and is dressed up like the mean wolf disguised as an old grannie in the Red Riding Hood story. Carolyn, his lovely wife, is ummm... a devil/slash angel? Uh... i think someone called her Ego and Super Ego - ha! (that's kind of clever). I guess that that is what gives her the perogative to feel up her hubby's buxom baloons in the picture... (trust me, they were enticing, but ayway...)

The guy in the picture with me at the bottom claimed that he was "black gold" -a good combo for "white trash" we thought, so we decided to capitalize on another photo op here. We met him for the first time that night, but found out that he is a bartender at the sushi restaurant "En" which happens to be just down the street from Darin's and my new apartment. Cool...

Mike Recommends the Truth

2006-12-04T07:47:00.000+09:00

my buddy mike rocco, the one liberal and informed progressive person i know from orange county, recommends this web site:
http://www.truthout.org/
(granted, i don't know hardly anyone from orange county...)

UC San Diego Conference on World History

2006-11-08T03:02:00.000+09:00

At the beginning of October I delivered a paper on Sex Trafficking in the Pacific Rim at a World History Conference held at the University of California, San Diego. It really was an awesome experience as I met some really great scholars from all different stages in their careers, and I got a lot of helpful feedback from some pretty impressive professors in the field (Ken Pomeranz and R. Bin Wong).

I want to write so much about this experience (like that the part I liked best about this conference was getting put up in the Radisson La Jolla for two nights, compliments of the conference organizers (!)) - and I will later when I have more time - but for now...

I will just post these two pictures. The top one is of two PhD students, Robbie Weiss (from UC Davis) and Lars Boerner (from Stanford/Holland/Switzerland), who also attended and whom I met and hung out with a lot of the time. The bottom is of me and Robbie - he does his research on bakeries in Mexico at the turn of the century. We took the pictures after lunch near the peer down by the beach, just about 1/2 mile away from the campus. Anyways, I have good memories from the conference and don't want to lose the pictures, so here they are...

Finally Got It

2006-10-17T02:25:00.000+09:00

Sameer's flicker site. I finally got the address. This refers to a previous blog entry I made about a week ago when I talked about my amazing friend Sam, his awesome energy, and his "Dutchbaby."

I Saw Bill Clinton in Person Today

2006-10-14T03:55:00.000+09:00

bill clinton was on campus today and i saw him!

unfortunately i missed his speech on "prop 87" - a clean alternative energy act - on the ballot in california this november - but, it was still very very exciting just to see his white head about 10 yards way! apparently clinton hung around after his speech shaking hands with the crowd for about 45 minutes. i went to the venue - the UCLA sculpture garden in north campus, just behind "my building," Bunche Hall - late because ... of all things i had a classical japanese class to go to during the speech.

there was truly an electric buzz in the air, which really, i've never ever experienced before... even at any of the olympic events that i attended in nagano in '98, or when i met the emperor and empress of Japan last fall, or the crown prince or princess of japan in Shinjuku more than ten years ago...

people were just screaming and yelling. there were waves of cheering undulating over the crowd depending on where and when clinton moved or waved. funk music was pumping in the background, and there were all of these people whom i've never seen before on campus; a lot of them looked extremely wealthy (big huge diamonds on their hands and expensive frost jobs) and/or power hungry. others were clearly lobbyists, interns, assistants, press people and business people from this or that clean energy group or advocacy.

here is yesterday's story anouncing his visit to UCLA in the student-operated newspaper, the Daily Bruin:
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?id=38354

Still So Tired AND My Self-Designated "Reverse Culture Tsunami"

2006-10-13T14:29:00.000+09:00

The main purpose of today's entry is simply to complain about how very very very very tired this life in LA makes me. I am already starting to feel pangs of regret about moving back here and being back in the thick of academic life again. (Before moving back to LA, I had considered moving to DC to be near friends and family, or Berkeley, also to be near family. In the end, however, I chose LA because I thought it was smarter to write a dissertation while having access to more teaching jobs and being near my professors).

So, today, Again, I will complain about the traffic - which is JUST an absolute nightmare. I try to be patient, but it just seems like such a wasted life to be sitting on the hot, expansive freeway an unneccesary 90 minutes each day.

Being on campus again is no real thrill anymore either. There are reminders everywhere - primarily lots of reminiscing with classmates whom I haven't seen for a couple of years - about the terrible terrible experiences some of us have had in grad school several years ago. While I was in Japan, I had managed to put all of those things out of my mind and thought that they were behind me. But now that I'm back, I worry about pleasing a lot of hard-to-please people again ... or else ... maybe they won't even approve my dissertation and finally let me ever graduate! (So goes the overly anxious line of thought that apparently floods my nervous system whenever immersed in this type of environment).

What's more, people around me are constantly talking about the number of chapters (of their dissertation) they have produced so far (I have none yet), going on the job market (hmm, not something I am looking forward to), deadlines for applications for fellowships (a despicable, time-consuming and draining process), and other "thises and thats" that just make my blood curl.

Unfortunately, I DO admit, that I do not enjoy talking about these things day in and day out. The constant reminders of all these stressful things are not conducive to my inner Ki and tranquility!!! Nor are all those uncomfortable hours on the *******, ****** ****-ing highway!

So, despite all of this anxiety and frustration, I am trying not to overreact. Of course, everyone must experience some amount of transition time where things just don't feel comfortable after a big move. I realize that it will/should take me a *bit* of time to adjust to this tinsel town world again... But now, in the wake of all this reverse culture shock - which I have decided to call my own reverse culture Tsunami, - I am wondering why in the hell did I choose to return to Los Angeles in the first place... Wouldn't it have been much easier to just move on out to the east coast or Berkeley instead? I guess I miss my friends from Japan now too. And, finally, to my further distraction and astonishment, I have recently found myself wanting to drop this (now clearly) dissatisfying life and become, perhaps, .... a truck driver, for example.

Sigh. ho hum.

Happy NCOD

2006-10-12T09:10:00.000+09:00

A day to remember: Happy National Coming Out Day! This blog entry is dedicated to someone I love very much.

So so very tired...

2006-10-10T15:37:00.000+09:00

Good Night to you LA Traffic

Ever since I have gotten back to LA I have been just so so very tired that I never want to write in my blog anymore - although there are topics that I think about all the time that seem truly deserving of a blog entry. For example, I would really like to make a list of all the things I forgot about and hate about LA... Like that the TRAFFIC absolutely SUX here. I want to blame the traffic above all for my being so tired all the time. I mean, it takes just so much time and energy to go even only a couple of blocks in this city.

Another blog entry that I think is ripe for the blogosphere is the surprising diversity of UCLA, which is also something that I had either forgotten about while abroad, or just taken for granted while I was living in this city before. It really is astounding how many different ethnicities and foreign nationals are present on the UCLA campus. My first two days back I overheard a surprising number of conversations in Korean and Chinese. I also heard people talking in Japanese, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Portuguese. And this was all in a matter of about 30 minutes, during the short amount of time that I was walking around campus. After I thought about this further a little, I realized that the friends I had met over the course of my second day on campus included 1 Bulgarian, 1 Arab American, 1 Palestinian, 1 Greek, 1 Indian American ... and an Italian. How remarkable is that?

A picture of "my highway," the 405, which from now on, I intend to avoid like the plague. This image was taken right below the Getty Center, which is only a few blocks west of UCLA

But sigh, I am too tired to talk about these things in further detail. My dashboard time has sapped all the energy and fun out of me. LA, its hot sun, high prices, and nasty traffic are wearing me out. Apartment hunting is taking a lot of time too. Meanwhile, I have been struggling to write a 20-30 page paper by Sunday, all-the-while bopping around as people's guest because I am homeless and have no desk. Sigh....

Staying at Sammy's

2006-10-03T18:58:00.000+09:00

Picture of me and Sam taken last year in Tokyo.

Tonight I am crashing at my good friend, Sameer's pad in UCLA grad housing. I became good friend's with Sameer last year when I stayed at Sokendai in Japan. We were living in the same dorm and working on the Sokendai project on oral history and digital archives - which Sam and I call Dejiden...but that is a long story for another day.

In any event, what I want to record in my blog tonight is how full of life my good friend Sammy is. First of all, it is actually thanks to Sam that I have a blog at all. He is the one who got me started - and he also got me started on Flickr!! - last summer after impressing me with his own marvelous sites. Sam has three blogs actually, which can be found on his blogger profile. I can't find his Flickr site right now, but I'll be sure to update this later with the link.

Another picture of Sam and me in Kamakura, also taken last summer.

The main reason Sammy deserves a little blurb in my blog tonight is that, as I suggested before, he really is an amazing guy. When I got here at 11 pm tonight, he decided to just whip me up a little something called "Dutch Baby," which involved mixing may of the ingredients for pancakes in addition to nutmeg, sugar, and butter. After throwing the ingredients in a pan, he baked the amazing pan-cake like desert in the oven for about 20 minutes as he all the while filled me in on the details of Steven Wolfram's A New Kind of Science, Wolfram's program called Mathmatica, and theory called chaos theory. In addition, as he talked, checked ingredients, and regulated the time on the oven, Sam was happily laying out a beautiful place setting for me, replete with a jazzy place mat, an orange cloth napkin, and a lively blue ceramic plate.

Sam's Dutch Baby was sooooo good. He chopped up some bananas to put on top and then put some syrup on. Believe me when I say that his cooking and lively attention really hit the spot after my long, six-hour drive down on 101 from San Jose.

Ban Ki-moon: Front Runner for next UN Secretary General

2006-09-30T01:10:00.000+09:00

I am really excited about this. I still have to figure out what this guy's position is on a lot of things, but I am very happy to see someone from Korea, an amazing but often underrecognized country (I feel), take on such an important role on the global stage.

Of course it also helps that he comes from Harvard - getting an MPA at the Kennedy School of Government in 1985!! (For better or worse, I have a bit of a bias for graduates from this school - especially since my best friends when I was at Harvard were students there.... (They DID, after all, have THE best parties!!))

Anyways, Ban Ki-Moon, who is currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of South Korea, is the top runner among about a half dozen candidates under consideration for the position. Kofi Annan will step down after a ten-year tour as Secretary General at the end of the year.

A Visit to the Honeybee

2006-09-28T03:46:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I got to Tacoma Washington to visit my "good friend," the professor. This is where I am at his house right now:
Actually, I found a much more amazing view of his location (I don't know why I never used this web site before - it's positively extraordinary!!), but I can't download the image to post here. To have a look, check out google map's satellite view.
So, I'm going to be here at Dan's place until Friday, when we will drive up to Anacortes to go to my Aunt's 60th birthday party. (Dan is being a very good sport by allowing me to introduce him to the entire family... Fortunately he is very outgoing... and I know personally that he makes very good first impressions. So he is the perfect date to bring to this family shindig).

The weather is positively mahvelous (smile)- I think I am really lucky to be visiting right now. On the way from the airport we had an awesome view of Mt. Rainier. As Dan pointed out, the volcanoe has a "Fuji-esque" type of presence, jutting up majestically in a practically perfect conical shape.

I am really impressed so far with Tacoma as a quaint little town close to the major urban hub of Seattle. I'm looking forward to having more of a look around. I especially want to go visit the Tacoma Museum of Glass. I happened to fly out on a leg from Nashville to Tacoma on Southwest sitting next to a really cool and interesting man who claims to have a piece of his own artwork on display there. According to his own description, the work is a glass structure about 300-400 feet long with pyramids shaped liked stacked cards.

Woa - in fact, I ust looked on line to see if I could find out anything more about this man's art and found a whole description of it with pictures. How amazing! I can't believe I was sitting next to this guy - apparently called Buster Simpson - on the plane! His piece is called "Incidence" (now i remember, he did tell me that) and there is a great blurb about it on the MOG website. I wish I had asked him more about his work... like what was the inspiration for this? And, how long did it take to make it?

Ah well. So far, I have had the opportunity to take in a local restaurant. Last night we went to an India place which is in walking distance of Dan's.

My friend Angel Oakley

2006-09-25T11:30:00.000+09:00

Yes, my best friend is a sharp shooter. Despite her namby pamby left wing views, she was raised by 2 hicks to be a proper red neck bell. She shot the pants off her carpool neocon buddies.
No, but seriously, she is a pretty good shot huh? I was largely impressed!
By the way, today is her birthday. Happy birthday Angel. I love you.

"22" Originally uploaded by Tanker00ch.

cows in my routine

2006-09-22T22:50:00.000+09:00

yesterday i noticed that i've been starting to ease into a bit of routine here at my folks lately. yesterday morning i made the second 2-hour bike ride to a nearby town called altavista with my dad. I woke up at 5:30 this time - because the first time, when Dad woke me up at 6:15 and i decided to take a shower before leaving, i unwittingly ended up being late for his unannounced 6:45 start time.

both times we rode from lynchburg to altavista, which is separated from my home by endless pastures, cows, cows and more cows, lots of hay stacks, a couple of train tracks, some ma 'n pa stores, and some woody stretches. the second trip struck me as even more beautiful than the first - and much more enjoyable too. i wasn't feeling as akward on my dad's bike anymore (i think my body must be getting used to sitting that way). however, the temperature was 40 degrees this time - brrr. my feet were pretty much frozen throughout the whole ride. but the low temperatures made for some pretty scenic pockets of fog that blended beautifully with the crisp blue skies, sunshine and green meadows!

each time, our final destination has been the Altavista YMCA, which my parents belong to. (they would rather drive - or in my dad's case, ride - the extra distance rather than pay the more exhorbitant fees at the local Y which is less than a five minute drive away!). when we get there, Dad works out (lifting weights) and i just hang out reading and chatting with all the elderly southern country folks who gather there to sip coffee, check their blood pressure, exchange news and read the papers in the mornings.

when we're done at the Y, dad and i pack our bikes into mom's truck and drive home. (mom has gotten to the Y in the meantime in order to enjoy her water aerobics and lift weights) after i get home, i eat, take a nap, and then amble out to starbucks/panera to read the new york times cover to cover and then do a chapter or two of reading that i've been meaning to catch up on all year. on the days that we don't ride the bike, i start my trip to starbucks earlier (they open at 5:30 am!)... then i've been making it my habit to yoga to this very awesome, local yoga studio...

shew, i could get used to this little lifestyle that i've begun to cultivate here.

****

but then...
....on the other hand, it just occurred to me TODAY that i am tired of living out of my suitcase. in fact, i have been on the rode for so long now that my clothing is no longer in season.

Hoorah for the Republicans!

2006-09-19T03:45:00.000+09:00

Yup. Better take a picture of this one. Perhaps just once in my lifetime, these words are to be uttered from my very own (socialist-leaning) left-wing lips.

Why would someone who despises everything Bush stands for utter such blasphemous words? Because. I am so proud of Republicans John McCain (AZ), John Warner (VA), Robert Byrd (WV) and former Secretary of State Colin Powell for standing up to that big, nasty tyrant G-W.

And McCain did it so gracefully as well. Facing a blistering editorial in the hyper-conservative Manchester Union-Leader, the Senator responded with an elegant defense, invoking his experience as a POW during Vietnam:

According to the New York Times, he responded: "The issue is not them - this issue is about us...The United States has always been better than our enemies. I'll tell you right now: one of the things in prison, in North Vietnam, that kept us strong was that we knew we were not like our enemies. That we came from a [place] with better values, with better standards."

More importantly, Senator McCain pointed out, disregarding the Geneva Conventions would certainly expose future Amereican POWs to mistreatment.

I don't suppose McCain will start opposing the war itself, but standing up for human rights is a step in the right direction... or should I say, in the ever-so-slightly left (?) direction for a change. Good for you Senator McCain and others. For once, I'm proud of you.

I'm a Communist

2006-09-17T11:38:00.001+09:00

Actually, no I'm not. At least not entirely. I think I'm more of a socialist - but I will have to work on defining that aspect of my political identity better in the next couple of days.

In any event, the reason I bring this political affiliation up now - used here as an epithet, by the way - is that this is what I have been accused of being (TWICE ) during the past 48 hours. Among other things, it seems that my being a self-naturalized doctoral candidate at UCLA makes me a "communist" - or worse yet, an "off-the-charts liberal" - according to some people whom I have met recently in West Virginia.

Another reason why I bring this "epithet" up now is because it allows me to segue into a short little discussion about my preliminary reactions of the U.S. after having been away from this country for an extended period of time. Just this past Thursday morning (Sept. 14), I touched down in Washington Dulles airport after a 13.5-hour direct flight from Japan and a long, two-year sojourn in Hayama Town of Kanagawa Prefecture.

Actually, whenever I come back to the States I like to take note of what instantly strikes me as unexpected or different about my country - I try to keep vigilant, storing a mental record of unexpected aspects or situations encountered during my first few hours back that I might not normally notice were I never to leave this country. On these ocassions, I suddenly find certain circumstances noteworthy, striking, and sometimes, I must admit, even strange. So I a mental record of these things because perhaps they might help me figure out what it really means to be "American" in the first place...

So... when I got off the airplane two days ago at Dulles Airport in Washington DC, here are some of the first few things that struck me about my country:

1) My country is much more ethnically diverse than I tend to give it credit for, even while living abroad. Suffice to say that the first Americans I saw when I got off the plain were not anglo-American - which, I must emphasize, was a true pleasure. Furthermore, as I was waiting in line at customs, I realized that despite my (own biased) expectations, I could see no visible differences between those people lined up in my line, the "U.S. Citizens" line, and those hanging out in the "other" line, that of the "foreigner passport holders." Both lines had a wide array of ethnicities of all categories. This, I found, was quite refreshing - although manifested to a degree that was heretofore unexpected!!

2) I don't mean to be judgemental here, but people look pretty course and rough in this country. I couldn't help but notice as soon as I got off the plane that most people (I won't label them "American", because clearly I can't tell anymore) seemed dressed for the beach, for a college dorm party, or for a taking care of kids in a nursery. In contrast to many of the smartly dressed people I see boarding planes in Tokyo (who, by the way, always make me feel entirely and inappropriately under-dressed), most people in the U.S. airport were wearing flip-flops (thongs), shorts, and T-shirts. Moreover, the were slouched back in their seats, had their arms flung across several chairs, and appeared completely and utterly cool and relaxed as they sat and waited for their flights. To my surprise, I even saw another man (presumably a construction worker based on his hard hat, work boots and bright, neon, orange bib) who, although clearly on the job, was slouched over a railing. After having gotten so habituated to encountering so many mannerly, uniformed, white-gloved and bowing construction workers in Japan, I couldn't believe how unprofessional this worker seemed by contrast; leaning against a guard rail as he communicated over his walkie-talkie, he seemed about to fall over to the other side. He was half-shaven, wearing a fuzzy midnight blue hooded sweatshirt .... and based on his position against the rail... I could see his .... butt crack!

3) If noticing such differences makes me a communist, I can't really say. But in any event, the third difference I have noticed on this go around has been that many people seem especially eager to broadcast their political views even when noone wants to hear them. Now recognizing this fact took a little more time than the first two did. I didn't even have a chance to talk to anyone other than my mother until my second day here. But then when that chance came, it greeted me as loudly as the bigger-than-life poster of Bush's image and the letter "W" that peered over my mother's friend's shoulder. I was in his office because, to his credit, he very generously allowed me to use his computer and thus his workspace to take care of some business I might not have accomplished otherwise.

Neverhtheless, when this W-fanatic looked over my shoulder and saw my title ("UCLA PhD Candidate") on the document I was working on, he was immediately off to the tracks. He claimed my school was for commies, and proceeded to lecture me that the only place worse in this country was Berkeley. Next he pontificated on the state of the union, especially those parts of it which are blue. For example, proudly he asked me, "what do all the blue states have in common?" When I shrugged, he retorted "They all have Republican governors because they know that Democrats can't work a budget."

So what's my point? That all Democrats DO know how to run the country - or their respective states - better than Republicans? Of course not. I simply want to note here, in my mental notebook, that this guy - and a string of others just like him whom I've had the wonderful opportunity to "hear out" later on this visit to West Virginia this week-end - doesn't feel any shame whatsoever in boasting about his political affiliations. Furthermore in his jovial and bold "American" (?) manner, he enjoyed making no haste to trudge all over the quiet reserve of a practical stranger by lecturing endlessly to her on the history and merits of his own way of thinking...

Ai yai yai. I've already had enough of this country. I guess I'm looking forward to moving back into my world of the so-called ivory tower, so at least there, I can pretend I, too, am in the Right... while yet preferring to lean to the Left.

Five Years Later: Remembering How I Spent "Nine-Eleven"

2006-09-11T10:28:00.000+09:00

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I was asleep in Ventura California, a small beach town about an hour north of LA. I had just driven across the country with my father from Boston to enroll in the doctoral program on Japanese History at UCLA. We had gotten into Ventura the night before and were sleeping at my brother's apartment. I had slept on the couch in the living room.

A childhood friend of mine living in Kentucky called me up completely worried. She knew that I had just made the trip from Boston to LA, and she thought I might be on one of those planes that were so tragically used as torpedoes against the World Trade Center. It was from her that I found out about both hits on the two towers. I believe it was only roughly around 6:30 am Pacific Time when she called to wake me up with the news. It sounded like a crazy story, and I couldn't fathom what she was describing. It was some sort of off-kilt conspiracy fantasy: two planes had flown into the WTC, another one had hit the pentagon, another plane down in Pennsylvania, and one of the towers had already come down in a pile of dust!

My father and I turned on the television to watch the living nightmare. I remember that it felt like watching some fake footage from some really bad action movie. It just didn't seem like a reality. The TV stations kept replaying the two scenes - airplanes crashing into buildings and a mammoth tower falling down upon itself - over and over again. Then within - it seemed - only 15 minutes of turning the TV on, the second tower came tumbling down in horrifyingly slow motion. It was truly horrific.

Dad and I decided to go out that day, although a lot of people were worried that more strikes might hit, so it was potentially dangerous. But we felt completely restless, like there was nothing else we could do - and we wanted a reason to pull ourselves away from those awful yet mesmerizing images on TV. We weren't going to be able to do much by just sitting at home. And we wanted to act out against the terrorist sub-plot to have average Americans fear going about their daily lives. So we decided to make a run into LA, check out the UCLA campus, open my bank account, make a stop by the housing office, and have a look at Santa Monica and Brentwood. I remember that the campus was completely empty that day. Soft winds were blowing, dried leaves and bits of discarded trash were rustling by, but no people were there. I imagined everyone was at home anxiously soaking in the details of such unbelievable events.

This was the one time in the last eight years that I have felt any kernel of sympathy toward George W. Bush. I remember thinking that I could never wish such a disaster on even my worst enemy. Unfortunately, as we have seen, Bush has duplicitously turned this nightmare into an interminable hell for hundreds of thousands of other innocents across the world.

Later that evening Dad and I drove back to Ventura on Highway 101 along the Pacific Ocean. It had been a beautiful day, and we hit the stretch passing Malibu right when the sun was setting in magnificent oranges and purples on the horizon. I remember thinking that that beautiful sun was just then setting on the most tragic day in US history.

Pictures above taken from The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune

My future baby!

2006-09-10T11:11:00.000+09:00

Panasonic DMC-FZ50S 10.1MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

I want this camera. Isn't it gorrrrrrgeous? I'm gonna ask for it for my birthday.

Many reasons to shake your finger at ABE Shinzo,future Prime Minister of Japan

2006-09-09T09:57:00.000+09:00

- He wants to redraft the Japanese constitution, getting rid of the 50-year old peace clause, so that Japan can have a strong army.
- He embraces male succession to the Japanese imperial throne. (Thus opposing attempts to amend Japanese law to permit a woman to ascend as empress).
- He is more conservative than that Yasukuni-visiting Koizumi.
- He has stated that he is thinking about continuing Koizumi's Yasukuni shrine visits as Prime Minister.
- He has taken confrontational stances toward other countries in East Asia, including North Korea, South Korea, and China.
- Is quoted saying "Experience... has shown us that you cannot solve the North Korea problem with good will".
- He's ba-fugly.

(Picture taken from BBC News webpage)

Dead Husband Not Father of Child Conceived with His Own Frozen Sperm

2006-09-09T08:55:00.000+09:00

This following contains excerpts from an article that I cut and pasted from The Japan Times, Sept 5, 2006 web page. I found the topic really interesting and want to keep the information for future reference.

The Supreme Court on Monday quashed a lower court ruling that a deceased man was the father of a child conceived after his death using frozen sperm. Justice Ryoji Nakagawa, who presided over the case at the second petty bench of the court. "No parent-child relation in a legal sense can be recognized, given the father died before she got pregnant and there is no possibility (of the baby) being dependent or of receiving inheritance," he said.

According to the ruling, the child's mother, now in her 40s, became pregnant using cryogenically preserved sperm from her husband, who died of an illness in 1999, and gave birth to a baby boy in 2001. The woman filed for registration of the baby as the couple's son, but municipal authorities rejected it. The application was rejected under the Civil Code, which does not recognize a baby born more than 300 days after the end of a marital relationship as a child born in wedlock. The woman then filed a lawsuit seeking such recognition.

In a November 2003 ruling, the Matsuyama District Court rejected the lawsuit, saying there is little social awareness acknowledging a deceased sperm donor as a father. It also noted that it cannot be said there was consent on the part of the husband for fertilization. In July 2004, however, the Takamatsu High Court ruled that such recognition is possible if there was a blood relationship and consent given by the father. The court then concluded that there was such consent, citing testimony by the husband's mother and other evidence. The prosecution then appealed.

My Folks are So Cool

2006-09-08T12:44:00.000+09:00

close up of the folks
Originally uploaded by annmerry.

Here is a picture of my mom and dad when they were in Korea back in July. This outfit really makes my dad look tall...

my future niece or nephew

2006-09-07T09:16:00.000+09:00

my future niece or nephew
Originally uploaded by annmerry.

this is an embryo. according to my brother, this embryo is potentially my future niece or nephew at 8 hours of age - that is 8 hours after conception. in reality, the embryo is smaller than a pinhead - invisible to the naked eye. Three eggs just like this one were implanted in my sister-in-law about a week ago. The implant was successful, so she is expecting to have a little tyke by mid-may now - may 14th i think it is... My bro's wife, K, is 40, so the chances of her having triplets is slim to none. Her doctor has never delivered triplets for women over 40. The chances of her having twins is 20%. I would like twins. That would be a lot of fun. Especially if a boy and a girl at the same time.

Boy o boy. I'm so disappointed.

2006-09-06T21:52:00.000+09:00

Princess Kiko, the wife of the current emperor of Japan's second son, Prince Akishino, just gave birth to a baby boy, the first male born into the imperial family in four decades. I am terribly disappointed as this precludes the possibility of amending Japanese law to allow women the right to reign as "female emperor" (as opposed to the more commonly observed "wife of emperor" or "empress") in this antiquated country. Many leaders in Japanese government were "relieved" and overjoyed that this recent birth shelved the issue of - what is in my opinion long awaited, LONG overdue - progress in women's rights.

monkeys in my bed

2006-09-06T11:04:00.000+09:00

this morning i got a small, miniscule taste of the joys of having kids around the house. when my alarm clock went off, i hit the snooze button, dead to the world. i did NOT want to get up (still have some jet lag and couldn't fall asleep last night). but before i could grab some more shut-eye, there is pounding on my door, and little voices crying "open up", "open up".

I opened the door - I was excited to see the little ruggers too. And the kids come piling in and decide to start bouncing on my bed. i have the sheets wrapped around me modestly, and the kids start poking at me - poking my belling and my shoulders laughing that its time to get dressed and asking me if i'm in my underwear (i was not, i just didn't have any "undergarments" on).

one of the kids starts jumping up and down beside me chanting "get up, get up, get up," which makes me more sleepy. so i fell back over on to my pillow, at which point she stands up and then takes a big jump and dives on top of me. thank god my stomach was empty, or i would have lost my dinner. fortunately, i love the little rugger, and her way of diving was really cute. she made me laugh so hard.

then later when i was using the bathroom in a room where the bathroom door doesn't lock, the younger rugger, m, knocks and then just comes right in. i say "no, no" "dame!" (no, that's bad, don't do that), but she just giggles and starts rooting around the room for her toothbrush. five minutes later, she has found it and is starting to brush her teeth as i'm finishing up taking care of my own business. unfortunately, i cannot run after her and chase her out of the room, because, as suggested, i am a little preoccupied.

oh what a life. it's kind of fun - if not hectic - to do a homestay with cute, little ruggers.

letter to my bro about korea

2006-09-05T16:33:00.000+09:00

oy, glad that you got a chance to see my blog. it's good - that thing does work - well i mean, it's good that someone reads it.

yeah, i'm in the airport now in incheon, korea. they have a very cool computer lounge here - $3 for an hour. the seats are spacious, desks are modern, and they have a fridge selling all kinds of sodas and waters over by the check-in counter. once you pay, you can use the computers for internet or other stations set up so kids/whoever can play Playstation. across the way they also have this amazing and spacious lounge with beautiful red and white leather reclining chairs set up to iriver headsets so people can sit back and listen to tunes while waiting.

in some ways korea is really awesome. as i was walking down the street today near binh's office, i passed a whole wall of "E-newspapers." passersby can stop and have a look at the news on their way to work. also, when i was riding the elevator up from the parking lot in binh's building this morning, the elevator had a plasma tv screen, and people were watching the news in there. i also saw people watching little portable television sets on their cell phones on the subway. i know they have these things available in other countries, but this is the first place where i saw lots of average, apparently middle-class people using such devices. the other amazing thing about the cell-phone-tvs on the subway was that there was reception underground. when i'm in japan, you have to wait until the train rolls into a station in order to have reception just long enough to send a text message before the train pulls away again and you get cutt off again.

anyways.... i think i'll have to cut and paste this little report on my blog now and expand a little. i enjoyed looking at your photos of your test tube baby. i'm looking forward to getting back to japan so i'll have the time finally to look into how invitro really works.

well, i'm signing off now. i'll be in the states from sept 14. til then i'll be doing a homestay with karen, her sister, and her mom, fumiko (suzuki) see you soon, AM

Quoting Eric D <xxxx@yahoo.com>:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericandkim/sets>> Eric D <xxxx@yahoo.com> wrote:> Hey Sister!>> Saw your entries about your trip to Soeul. You've lived an amazing > life. You'll have a lot of great stories to tell when you're 90.>> Hey, check out our Photo Log... http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericandkim>> Thought you might enjoy some of the new photos there.>> - Eric>> ---------------------------------> Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and > 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less.>>> ---------------------------------> Want to be your own boss? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business.>>> ---------------------------------> Stay in the know. Pulse on the new Yahoo.com. Check it out.

pictures of some of my favorite people

2006-09-05T07:43:00.000+09:00

Snoozing in Seoul Starbucks

2006-09-04T20:32:00.000+09:00

Today I went to Gwanghwamun 광화문 (my friend typed this -if you can't read it, try 'unicode' encoding) Gate in downtown Seoul for lunch with my friend Binh. His office - which has a view of Seoul from the nineteenth floor - is there. I was so completely exhausted from my two flights yesterday that I could barely stay awake in the subway. I was so tired, it even almost seemed to hurt to walk at first - I'm serious - that's how whacked out and out of sorts my body was.

Had a "Chinese" lunch with Binh. It was yum. I say "Chinese" with quote marks, because it was not real Chinese food, but a Korean version of it. Unbelievably the two dishes of noodles cost roughly $3.00 total. The price was proof to me that however much I think Korea has been booming in the past 10-20 years, it is still not as hard-core expensive as Japan is yet.

After lunch, I went to have a coffee at Starbucks. Started reading the newspaper... but in 5 minutes, I crashed. I fell asleep in the middle of Starbucks for 2 1/2 hours. What a productive day (not). After I woke up finally, I took a walk around and found found the Kyobo book store, the largest book store in Seoul, which has tons and tons of books- not only in Korean but also in English, French, etc.

I left the bookstore finally - didn't want to get too interested in any book because I was liable to spend all my money and end up with too much luggage as usual. So, went back to Starbucks to wait for a ride home from Binh. He was late, which made me pretty happy, because while waiting, I started reading the book he recommended to me, The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs.

Thoan's wedding album

2006-09-04T09:32:00.000+09:00

A friend of Binh's, Thoan, who is my friend too -but i never get to see him anymore, just got married. His photo album is here.

London Heathrow Airport SUX

2006-09-03T22:58:00.000+09:00

i will never go back to London Heathrow airport ever again - unless the United States happens to win the war on terror and we return to the good ole safe days of the 1950s. Yeah, that's like saying, "when pigs fly". that's how I feel anyway. i'll never go back there until pigs fly. that airport SUX.

the picture here shows how they have totally downsized the carry-on restrictions simply by throwing in some wooden boards into the old model. "carry-on" suitcases are no longer allowed on flights from heathrow. passengers are only allowed one bag the size of a small brief-case. the staff was extremely strict. when i checked in, the ticketing agent made me show him all of my bags and instructed me to get rid of most of my things. he would not process my ticket until i had met the regulations.

then when i got to the security line, they had all these receptacles lined up for people to throw out any liquids, toilettries, etc. the people there made me throw away my chapstick, which made me really upset. now, i had to live through a 14-hour flight with dry, cracked lips - how excruciating!!! damn terrorists! people had such a small amount of carry-on luggage that when i finally boarded the plane (last, i might add, which is an entirely other sad and frustrating story) all of the overhead bins were EMPTY. then, on the other side of the flight, after arriving and when waiting to collect checked-in luggage, all of these little, tiny children's sized bags came pouring onto the conveyor belt. it was clear that people had been forced to check in all of their minute carryon items before boarding. this made the whole process of collecting the luggage at customs even more time consuming...

i'm in korea now... oh my god, i am so tired. i kind of have jet lag too. wow. i have no energy to enjoy korea for the day. oh well. i don't care. the main reason i'm here is to see my friend and his family. and i've already done that, so...

my friend's baby is so cute. she is 2.5 and speaking vietnamese and french already. she was shy when i first got here, but after about 3 hours she started smiling and hanging out with me... she still refuses to give me a little kiss on the cheek though. i gave her a present from switzerland - a stuffed cow which she can wear on her back and use as a backpack.

her parents are really worried because she spent all last week in the hospital with pneumonia. they fight with her to make her take her medicine now that she is back at home. they're worried because she's still coughing. they are concerned about what they should do if the antibiotics fail to make the little girl better.

Dan's trip across America

2006-08-14T15:08:00.000+09:00

Yesterday at Ishiki Beach

2006-08-14T11:00:00.000+09:00

Yesterday at Ishiki Beach
Originally uploaded by annmerry.

Mia and I went to Ishiki Beach yesterday in what turned out to be a near-perfect day. [ I guess the only thing that would have made it more perfect would be to have gotten help with my suntan lotion from a certain good-looking "honey bee" ]. It was our last minute attempt to enjoy some summer in Hayama before we both fly out to Switzerland and then home to the States in a couple of weeks. We took the bus down from Sokendai around 1:30, hired a beach umbrella from one of the beach huts, and hung out at the beach until about 5:30. At dusk, we ran into Mike, who introduced us to the owner of a beach hut/club called "Umigoya" where we had supper and listened to a band called Boots Boys play live music.
The band was so good I bought their CD. Mia taught me how to play a card game called King's Corner - and just when I thought I was gonna kick her butt, she swooped in and obliterated me.

Jon Stewart on Net Neutrality

2006-08-14T08:57:00.000+09:00

Thanks Mia for sharing this one with me. Pretty funny.

It's TIME to get Excited, YO yo:Going to Lausanne, Switzerland

2006-08-11T02:39:00.000+09:00

Okay, it's starting to happen. I'm starting to get kind of totally excited about my trip to Switzerland. Soooo, in honor of my upcoming travels, I have decided to post the current weather, an up-to-date clock with the current time, and some pictures of Lausanne:


Plan your trip Local Radar Detailed Forecast

And here are two nice pictures of Lausanne that I lifted off the web:

three bees and a nest: my scooter story

2006-08-01T12:30:00.000+09:00

the highlight of my week-end was getting my scooter - which, after a four week trip to the philippines with my folks, had stopped working - fixed. noone could figure out what was wrong, and i was having a hell of a time finding someone to come out and fix it. so may people had theories about what was wrong though. one person was sure it was my battery; my dad was lecturing me about engines, another guy at the university told me that given the low low price i had paid for it, it was probably just time for me to junk it (i.e. i had probably bought an old lemon); and someone else just thought i should let the scooter sit with the motor running for 10 minutes to "warm" it back up (didn't work)...

so, finally i found a mechanic that lived about 3 km away. he couldn't come get it, but i realized that it was almost entirely down hill to get to his shop. so i coasted my bike down for about 2 km, down the hill on some back roads. then right when i had to start pushing (and it was HEAVY!!!! and it was SO HOT outside), i was passing this junk yard in the woods, and there were three lone peasant guys who were just sitting next to it chewing the fat.

they called out to me "oi" and asked me what was wrong with my bike. so i told them that it had stopped working and that i was pushing it to the mechanic. i was about to leave them in the dust, when one of them told me to bring it over to them. so i did. then, they were all talking, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. one guy started the engine up, but saw that the accelerator was failing to get the wheels moving. he thought that something might be wrong with the muffler, so he searched in his junk pile and got a long steel rod out, and he started digging around the muffler pipe with it.

then about 30 seconds later, he pulled out... ... three dead bees and a bunch of grass!!! he said that the bees had been making a nest in the muffler! i couldn't believe it! then i asked him if i could pay him and he said no. so i reached in my backpack and pulled out a crisp, cold fuji apple that i was going to take to the beach with me today. instead, i told him to take it. he was bowing to me, and i was telling him how happy i was. the other guys were all smiling and waving to me, saying good bye...

Got Milk?

2006-07-17T22:01:00.000+09:00

My granddaddy does. I just got this old, old newspaper ad for milk, featuring my dad's dad, Bernard L. Davis, a neighborly man who originally hailed from a dairy farm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This ad provides a clue as to where my father, Bernard E. Davis, might have inherited some of his love for all things dairy. Perhaps it also suggests why travelling with an emergency plastic spoon in his pocket for icecream became a necessity for Dad this summer, during our trip to the Philippines.

Mother and Daughter ChroniclesDays 13-17, "Hell on Wheels: In the Mountain Province"

2006-07-06T13:41:00.000+09:00

A picture of the 1,000 peso bill, which shows an image of our destination: 2,000-year-old rice terraces in Banaue Village, Mountain Province, Luzon Island, the Philippines.

The following is our longest blog to date about the three-day overland drive that Mom ("H"), Dad ("B") and I ("AM") took from Manila to a mountain village called Banaue on the first day (9 hours); then to Sagada on the second day (6 hours); and finally to Baguio (8 hours) on the third day. The drive was treacherous, tedious, sweltering, bumpy, rocky, and slow. Time crept by in our van by the millionth of the second. We spent so many hours travelling slowly over dusty, rocky roads up in the mountain provinces of the Philippines that I thought I should eventually try to write a short excerpt here on my blog attempting to convey the slow, painstaking tedia of the whole experience. To put it mildly, Mom, Dad and I were pretty miserable, especially by the third day. The following are my notes of our dialogue about the experience after having a day of rest here in Baguio City. Fortunately, we were able to talk humorously about this hellish experience - truly an experience of a lifetime, which none of us ever hopes to repeat.

AM: Okay, so we took our flight (from Bacolod) to Manila.
H: We were met by our tour guide and started our long long long lonnnnnnnnnnng, rocky, drive to Banaue. Did we see the rice fields that day?
AM: No…the second day. Remember when we got there we had those massages. Tell me about that.

A common scene from the window of our van: Filipino man riding his carabou

H: We stayed in a fairly nice lodge where we had our massages. It was my very first massage. I didn’t realize that I had muscles that she worked on. Let’s see. She pushed and pulled and pushed and pulled on every muscle in my fingers, my toenails (AM: laughing at Mom) my ears… my chin, my neck (Mom is gesturing to each part of her body as she lists them.)
What else? (Mom pauses and looks at me with a questioning face.) It hurt, but at the same time it felt good. It only cost six dollars for a whole hour of pain but yet relaxation! For six dollars an hour, it was well worth it. But I don’t think I am going to pay $40 or $50 for another one in the United States. Maybe I’ll wait ‘til I go to Russia. Maybe they’ll have a massage in Russia for the same price.

AM: I’m going to write here later why I thought we needed the massages so badly.
H: Well, we sat in the car, and the road was rocky. I mean it wasn’t a dirt road; it was ROCKY! It was an unpaved road. It was a rocky road. They had large rocks that the car had to go on. And our vehicle didn’t have a good suspension (system). Ann Marie kept telling me to move over.
(H is smiling mischievously. She makes AM laugh loudly)
H: Cause I was sliding onto her all of the time! She was being squashed (both laughing) by me and Bernie. [Note: I was sitting in the middle, between Mom and Dad.]

The long, winding, never-ending road - 10 miles per hour - hour after hour.

AM: I think I’m gonna have tears in my eyes right now (laughing so hard)… So how many hours was that trip?
[Bernie, my dad, joins the conversation] B: Well I think we drove nine hours elapsed the first day, then 6 the second day, and then 8 the last day.
AM: I know. It was a truly painful experience.

H: But we finally saw the terraces. And Bernie commented that “wasn’t the long trip worth it?”
B: What?
H: (Re-explaining.) You were in so much awe of the rice terraces that you said the trip was worth it!
B: Yeah… I think it was worth it.
H: I guess after the fact it was.
B: It was pretty impressive. I learned that terraces are not only used for rice but for other vegetables in other areas.

Mom, Dad, me, and our local guide, Helen at Banaue Terraces

AM: I know when I had the massage I said then it was worth it to, but you (Mom) responded that you “wouldn’t go that far”
(long pause) Okay, tell us about the health of everyone.
H: I have a cold I can’t get rid of. I’m taking so many medications that Ann Marie thought that I was dead last night!

[AM laughs hard. B even looks up with a small wry smile.]
H: Because I was finally able to sleep and didn’t cough and didn’t make a sound.
AM: That was last night, right?! Yeah, I was worried that you were mixing your medicines. And I hadn’t heard from you all night. Unlike the previous nights when you were coughing up a storm.

H: But we’re skipping some days. (pause). The old lady who showed us the terraces. I gave her a big tip, I think she was very surprised. I should have given her 100 pesos, but I gave 300. Our other guide (Jerry, our driver) was surprised I gave her so much money. I should have given her 50 pesos. (pause) I gave her 300 pesos can you imagine that?
AM: I think that’s great. It’s only $6.
H: Yeah, but for a tip, that’s pretty good.

Mom holds some blades of rice on the terraces

AM: Okay, well what did she do with us?
H: She took us to several terraces and walked us through the terraces. She guided us very carefully so we wouldn’t slip and slide. And she took us up to the mountains to see an old house. An old native hut. With … (pause)
[B exits]
H: We met a very old lady who was helped by a young boy (to walk) to a viewpoint. Where a house had just burned down a couple of weeks ago. She was dressed in her native clothes. And gladly posed for pictures.

AM: I thought it was amazing that she was so old. She said that she had been
a young lady already during World War II.
H: That’s right.
[B comes back.]
AM: Hey Dad, what were your impressions of that lady we saw in native dress?
B: Oh my! (He laughs)

H: She was a character wasn’t she?
B: Yeah, it was amazing that she was still operating at 100 years old.
H: Very thin. Very frail.
B: She was getting right down on her haunches. She was very friendly. I’m not sure how much Enlgish she has… but she had a very friendly manner.

A local lady poses in native dress. We estimate she is about 100 years of age

H: Now we learned from Belay (our other tour guide, Jerry’s wife) – no, it was another guy who told us. We learned that old people depend on their children for support. The government doesn’t have any benefits. Maybe that it is why they have so many children. See the government doesn’t give them anything.
(Mom bursts into a round a coughing)

AM: Okay, what else is very memorable about that trip?
H: The second night we slept in a –what do you call it – a boy scout cabin. (Asking Dad) What did you think of that cabin?
B: Oh! (small laugh) It was very minimal.

H: I don’t think they had mattresses did they? But we were so tired.
B: It was just barely enough to get buy. It was protection from the rain. But it was very rudimentary. Of course, you (looking at AM) took a shower. It looked nearly impossible to me to clean up. They didn’t give us any towels, and the pillows were not adequate.
H: I guess we don’t know how to rough it.
B: It had light … electricity. It had water. It had a flush toilet.

H: That’s one interesting thing about toilets. Every time you go to the bathroom you have to flush it down with a bucket of water that was collected.
B: Yeah, wasn’t that interesting? Very common. Sometimes (the bucket was) auxiliary. But…

H: But the ride to Baguio was rainy. The roads were rocky and windy and steep!! Dad was surprised that I didn’t get motion sickness like I normally do. But I don’t know why I didn’t get motion sickness like I normally do.
Don’t know why. I guess I was blessed. Can you imagine if I had gotten motion sickness and Jerry (our driver) would have had to stop every thirty mintues?! I guess I was blessed on this trip.
AM: Yep, that is a very glass-is-half-full way to look at things. Considering how strenuous the trip was.

Our driver, Jerry, and his wife, our guide, Belay

H: Yeah, that is really amazing how I didn’t get car sick. Huh Bernie?
B: Yeah. I thought it was amazing that you would be willing to ride on such a road. But I guess you didn’t have a choice. You wouldn’t let me drive on such a road back at home. You won’t even let me drive on two-lane roads.
H: Yeah, I would have demanded to drive. Yeah, I usually drive to Snowshoe (Mom and Dad's favorite vacation spot in West Virginia) because of the little winding roads.
B: She would rather go on the interstate rather than on two-lane roads. Sometimes I like to go on a back road.
H: I would rather go on the freeway than a two-lane road. (She says with disdain)

AM: Okay what else about the trip?
H: Well Jerry was very conscience about our needing to go to the bathroom.
B: Yeah.
H: So, he made sure to check the bathrooms before we went. Sometimes he skipped several places because it seemed unsanitary.
B: I wonder how many times those two have made the trips.
H: She says they have done the trip several times.
B: It seems if he’s done it several times, he should probably know where all the clean bathrooms are.
H: I don’t think he’s ever had people who have to go to the bathroom as much as you two did. (AM laughing a lot now). I mean you two… ! I mean, they didn’ t go to the bathroom half as much as you two did. (long pause)

H: (Continues) Thank goodness for my sleeping pills and Nyquil. It helped me with my sleep
AM: That’s why I started to worry if you were dead.
H: Yeah, because I took sleeping pills, and that medication she gave me
AM: And Nyquil.
H: Now I have my antibiotics. So now I’m taking (that too)!

AM: Okay, so let’s talk about today.
H: Today. Started out beautiful. Beautiful sunny day. First we visited the Philippine Military Academy.
B: The P – M – A. (pause) The Philippine Military Academy.
H: Then we visited -
B: We drove to Camp John Hay.

H: No, we visited all the tanks first. What did she call all those old tanks?
AM: relics.
H: Machine guns and tanks.
B: Mortars, howitzers, and armored personnel carriers.
H: There were three military men casually guarding the area. What else? (coughing) Then we went to the museum. And souvenir store.
AM: Yeah, I got a T-shirt for my friend in the Navy – who went to the Naval Academy.

H: Okay, (long pause) we were there between classes and saw lots of young military men running to their next class. Saw three women! According to Belay (our tour guide), there are more women who are applying to go into the military academy (now).
AM: I read that they first started to let women join the military in the Philippines in 1993.

H: Hmm. Then Ann Marie and Dad climbed a tree house.
AM: Yeah, it was a tree house made out of cement. (B laughs a little.)
H: In the souvenir shop, we met a Filipino family from Baltimore, MD.
AM: What did we do after the military academy?
H: What did we do?

B: We drove through Camp John Hay, and then we saw the mansion where the president stays when she is here (in Baguio). And then we went to the market for…
H: We bought several silver souvenir pieces.

AM: Anything else?
H: Oh! (she says remembering with surprise) That I and Dad wore the native costumes and had our pictures taken behind mountainous scenery. We paid a little old lady vendor to pose with us in her costume. Ann Marie met a homosexual. (AM bursts out laughing- she thinks Mom has a hilarious way of saying things so abrubptly.)
B: What?
H: A homosexual. You didn’t see that?! There was a homosexual guy posing as a woman. He was funny! He acted like a girl. He dressed like a girl.
B: I must have been ahead of you. Just like a woman, huh?
H: Yeah.
B: A cross dresser.
H: I didn’t notice him at first. Ann Marie noticed him!! What was he a salesperson?
AM: Yeah! (smiling still)
H: We didn’t buy anything from him.

AM: okay…
H: Then we went to the mall to have chicken for lunch.
AM: Yeah, Belay said that that was supposed to be the best chicken in the Philippines.
H: Well she’s been through the Philippines so she should know…. (pause) We had leche flan, that was very rich. With lots of calories.

AM: Okay, we can’t go without mentioning your church.
H: Yeah. We wanted to see the Grotto of lords … or what was it? With how many steps?
AM: 300 steps or something.
H: But it started pouring. So we went back to the hotel and said our good-byes to our guides. They are heading back to Manila tomorrow. We were asked too by the travel agent to return to Manila with them tomorrow, but I refused to sit in that car for six more hours! Our plane reservation was cancelled.

AM: So we have to stay here an extra day.
H: So we decided to stay an extra day in Baguio rather than ride in that car for another 6 hours. And hopefully we can fly back to Manila on the following day.

AM: Okay, let me back up a second. Why did you want to see that church so bad?
H: I wanted to see the Grotto Sooooooo badly because I remember when my mother took me there when I was little. That was our main reason for coming to Bagiuo. But sadly it was raining too hard. So hopefully we can do it tomorrow. They say the mornings our better for touring because the rain usually starts here in the afternoon.
AM: Yeah, it’s rainy season now huh?

H: Yeah. I would not have gone to Baguio it weren’t for the church.
(pauses) And this will probably be my last trip to Baguio!
AM: (Laughing again. She knows Mom is referring to that awful three-day, twenty-three-hour car ride.) What was it 9 hours plus 6 plus 8? 23 hours?
H: Yeah. Of sitting in the car.

AM: Okay that’s enough for today.
H: What do you think? We’ve been sitting here a long time?
AM: Yeah, I think we have written about 12 pages. I think we are all caught up now.

Mother and Daughter ChroniclesDays 9-12: "From Dumaguete via Cebu to Bacolod"

2006-07-01T09:15:00.000+09:00

A picture of our Franco relatives. From right to left: Baby, Helen, Carmen, Santiago, Ann Marie, and Bernie:

Mom and I sat down last night for a long catch-up session. We had gotten pretty far behind on our journal entries. The last week has been so busy - and Dad, Mom, and I all caught colds, which made us super tired every evening. The following are our recollections from days 9-12 - our travels in Bacolod. My dad ("B" - for Bernie) joined our conversation from time to time below, as he wrote postcards. We were all sitting at a table in the dining room of our hotel, the "Prince Hotel," while it poured last night in Baguio City.

AM: Let’s start from when we took the night boat from Dumaguete to Cebu.
H: Was Terri with us?
AM: No, we left Auntie Terri at Dumaguete. She and Uncle Morris were going to visit Uncle Frank and Aunt Mabel.
H: Our night trip was not bad, right? At least for me. I took my sleeping pill and slept through most of the night.
AM: It was awful for me because my bunk was right next to a man who snored like a freight train. He was so loud that I had to move to a different part of the ship and sleep over there.
H: Worse than Dad, (laughing) huh?
AM: Yeah. Totally.
H: Okay, Rufo and Val, Rufo’s relative, met us at the dock early in the morning, about 5 am in the morning.
AM: Yeah, we arrived at 4:30 am.
H: Rufo gave us a tour of Cebu. First we saw the cross of Magellan.
B: I got most of this (the details about what we did) in my e-mails. We went to McDonald’s first.
AM: Oh, that’s right, then we went sightseeing.
H: Where did we go after the Magellan cross, Bernie?
AM: We went to the church. It was dedicated to the patron saint of Cebu.
B: Basilica of Saint Nino?
H: Then we went to see the statue of the warrior, Lapu-Lapu, who killed Magellan.

Lapu Lapu. A native Filipino warrior and national hero for having killed Magellan.

B: I think the place was called Magellan Shrine.
H: It was a huge statue of a good-looking Filipino. Then we walked around the village there where we saw a variety of fish and squid… Well, I was fascinated with the Lapu-Lapu fish. I wanted to taste it.
AM: Why is that?
H: It was a colorful fish. I wanted to see how it tasted. So we ordered only one fish for four people (giggles). We were thirsty so Rufo suggested Tanduay rum. We got 5-year Tanduay rum.
AM: What did you think about that?
H: Rum was delicious!
(B Grunts.)
H: Dad didn’t like it. We each had one shot of run. So we had the entire bottle left, which I am now carrying around the Philippines. If you come to Lynchburg, I’ll share my Tanduay rum with you. We may buy another bottle for our Japanese hosts in Hayama.

Below is a picture of our rum shots with Dad's mango shake.

AM: So let’s move on to Bacolod.
H: So it was time to fly to Bacolod (City on Negros Island). After we checked in (to the airport in Cebu), we had lunch.
B: That is where I had a funny hamburg.
AM: Why was it funny?
B: Philippine Hamburger.
H: It wasn’t beef.
B: It didn’t seem like beef.
AM: Okay, what else?

H: (When we got to Bacolod) Santiago and Carmen met us at the airport. Then they took us to the nice hotel.
AM: Then what? After we checked in.
H: Then we met the sister, Baby. And we went with them to have tea. Then they took us back to the hotel because they thought we were tired. Then we had dinner with Santiago and a whole bunch of Francos at Baby’s house.
AM: What were your impressions after the first day (in Bacolod)?
H: (Hesitates a while) There were so many Francos that I was confused about who was who. We met a brother-in-law named Javier Lacson. His wife (Terri) joined us later that evening. Bernie, what do you remember about our first evening with the Francos?
B: It was very nice. It was at the home of Baby and Nick. I can remember most of the people – I can remember the adults. It was a Spanish style of cooking.
AM: What was Spanish about it?
B: Oh I don’t know.
AM: Okay, so what did we do the next day in Bacolod?
B: We went four places. First we went to the community where he works. Then we went to the historic house. Then we went to dinner at the Japanese place.

Santiago showed us the blackboard he uses to communicates with the mute and deaf of the community where he volunteers

AM: We went to …
B: We went to a place that sold local gifts, and then we went to the museum.
H: We went to the museum with Baby. (After) It was getting late, so they took us to the hotel to rest. And then we went to Santiago’s place for dinner. And then we met *more* Francos.
B: It was pretty much the same people. It was the first night we met Vicky.
H: I think Santiago’s house was more of a hacienda. It was more open. He had three different families living with him. He had Vicky and her family (two girls) and then Santiago has an adopted girl.
AM: Okay (We dispute here a bit about who was who and what we did on what day. I’ve deleted a lot of our disputes because it really is rather tedious.)
H: When did Santiago tell us about hearing about Mom?
AM: It was the last night.
H: Well what happened on the second (day) Dad? (B recaps the above – that we went to four different places.)
H: Javier and his wife were with us the first two nights.

AM: Okay what did we do on the third day there?
H: We went to the market.
B: We looked at the squatter villages, and then we went to a mall, then to a market, and then to a coffee shop.
AM: Mom, what do you remember most about that day?
H: I remember Carmen bargaining with the sales people over different products we purchased.
B: Oh, when you bought the baskets at the market.
H: And I think Santiago would feel sorry for the sales people. (B laughs) Because Carmen kept lowering the price. And he wanted to say “Oh, enough! Just pay the price!” Then we went to a coffee shop, and then we went home to take a nap. A Siesta!!
AM: Okay…
H: Uh… then we had dinner at Pinky’s house. She had a beautiful house. With two maids serving us dinner. And then Santiago told us about learning about Mom from Dr. Labra. We wanted to meet Dr. Labra but he wasn’t available. Santiago remembered Mom really well (from having seen her when he was only four years old, more than sixty years ago), and (when he finally spoke to her on the phone) Mom recollected all the different individuals whom Santiago knew also.
AM: This is when they spoke on the phone for the first time after sixty years, right?
H: Yeah
AM: So Santiago knew she was telling the truth.
H: Santiago remembers Mom, but the rest of the family did not, because they were too young.
AM: Wait a minute, what about Joe and Ines, they’re older (than Santiago)?
H: (Santiago said that) Joe didn’t believe Santiago at first. Okay (pauses) Santiago wished that Mom had had more courage when the Franco’s moved to Manila. Mom was living close to them
AM: When was this?
H: Years later, Santiago said he was a teenager. (This was right before WWII).

AM: Why did he think Grandma needed courage?
H: So she could meet her family. But Mom was afraid of her father. Santiago thinks Mom should have ignored her father. And that her father (also Santiago’s father) would have supported Mom. But Mom was afraid of her father. (Long pause) But now he’s glad that they finally got together and that he was able to meet the rest of her family.

Here is a picture of the entire family at Pinky's house.

AM: After how many years did they finally reunite?

H: After 60 years. (Pauses) Santiago says that Jimmy (H’s youngest brother) looks like Santiago.
B: (Mumbling. He is barely audible.) Fifty. Must be about 47 years.
H: And that he thinks that I look like Carmen – Camenlita – who died at the age of 39. Because she is younger than Carmen (Santiago’s wife). (Carmenlita) died at a very young age and left two orphans to be raised by Santiago and the rest of the family.
(Mom is looking at the screen now, questioning Dad’s calculations.)
AM: Okay, what next?
H: Charlie, one of the orphans, also died at a young age, 2 years ago. He was in his early fifties.
AM: I got the impression that he was younger but…
H: Let’s say forties. AM: Okay
H: (sighs) We took several pictures before we left for our hotel. It was a very – what do you call it? – informative, heart-warming evening.
AM: What was heart-warming (about it)? [No response] Dad, tell me your impressions!
B: Very warm, hospitable, and very friendly. They are very close-knit family.
H: Yeah, very close-knit family.
B: Spanish. A type of Spanish. Not uh… Well they are open, sincere. So I would say that they are not formal and not reserved. But dignified in a Spanish sort of way. They had some Spanish customs. The Spanish cooking, and the kissing on the cheek thing.
AM: What do you mean “the kissing on the check thing”? (Dad looks at me funny) I’m pretending I don’t know so I can get more details here.
B: Well, when you leave or when you meet, the men and women all kiss on the cheeks. It’s not the French way. They don’t really kiss each other on the cheek. Well, the man kisses the women on the cheek…. Which is a nice custom. (pause) I don’t know…
I think Santiago is really concerned – genuinely concerned – definitely concerned about the prospects for the poor class. Especially that society is polarizing all the time. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
H: And Carmen blames it all on the government.

Tenament housing in Bacolod City. Santiago and Carmen interview to find the poorest of the poorest deaf-mutes as applicants to the community where they volunteer.

B: Yeah, she blames it on the government… Well the government did something to then. I didn’t realize this but. Apparently they (the Filipino government) had the land reform and took away their plantation. I was surprised to hear all about that. He said it hurts, but there is nothing he can do about it.
[Now Mom and Dad discuss the financial situation of Santiago versus his cousin Javier Lacson, who has made “a killing” on some of his land, despite the fact that some of it was also taken away) which he had turned into real estate. The situation is quite complicated, and I am not able to type fast enough to keep up with their discussion. The three of us discuss what we heard, which is apparently all different because we were having conversations with different people at different times. I think it would be very informative and interesting if we could update this gap a little later.]

H: So the next day Santiago brought us to the airport, and we sad our goodbyes.
AM: What time was our flight? It was like at 7:15 or something.
H: Yeah…
AM: Okay, I’m going to make…
H: You better delete some of this!
AM: Yeah, I know.
H: It’s boring.

Mother and Daughter ChroniclesDays 6-8: “Dumaguete and Siquijor”

2006-06-29T18:25:00.000+09:00

(Picture: Deding's kitchen. Beside this cooking space is a stack of firewood that Deding uses for building the fires on which she cooks. There is a picture below of her cooking us dinner while one of her grandchildren watches.)

The following is my discussion with Mom while we were at the Cebu airport waiting for our flight to Bacolod. We had just spent three days in Dumaguete (a college town where my uncle Morrie lives with his wife and son) and the neighboring island of Siquijor (where my grandma lives with her caregiver, Jinky) . My uncle Morris is building a house on Siquijor on a plot of land where his wife and Jinky were raised. My grandma's house is also located on this land...

AM: Let’s start from when we got to Dumaguete.
H: Okay, it was a long, six-hour boat ride from Cebu to Dumaguete. The last half hour was the worst. I “fed” the fish.

AM: What does that mean Mom?
H: The fish got my dinner... [Pauses] When we got to Dumaguete, we went to a very nice hotel with a religious atmosphere.

AM: Really?
H: Yeah, because there was a no-drinking and no-smoking policy; it felt like something (Jerry) Falwell would run. And there were several fellows who seemed to be disciples of the Mormon Church staying there.

AM: Really, I thought those guys were just visitors. They didn’t belong to the hotel.
H: Yeah, but that shows that the hotel is used mostly by religious groups.

AM: Okay.
H: Let’s see, what did we do? Morris’ son and wife joined us for dinner. We had a good night’s sleep and then the next day we enjoyed the main boulevard of Dumaguete. We rented a van, and we saw the sisters.

AM: What?
H: You didn’t see it? It (the statue of the sisters) was in front of the hotel. We saw those five nuns who came to educate people in Dumaguete. Five sisters struggling in a boat.

AM: What else?
H: The cab driver took us to various places. He took us to a local place where we could buy coconut pie. And then he took us to a restaurant where we had coffee, then he took us to the pier to go to Siquijor.

AM: How was the boat ride to Siquijor?
H: There was a preacher there who preached and preached and preached. He must have preached for a whole hour while we were waiting to go. (Later on the boat) I heard some chicks peeping. The man in front of me had a box full of chicks. Don’t know what he’s going to do with all those chicks.

AM: You didn’t talk to him.
H: Nun-uh. I guess when we got off the boat there were so many porters.

AM: That was in the Dumaguete wasn’t it?
H: It was in Siquijor also. I didn’t recognize Darling (Jinky’s sister and Morrie’s sister-in-law), who kept telling me to go with her. But I said “No,” because I thought she was one of the porters. Until she said Morris’ name, and then I knew, and I followed her. Then we saw Mom’s unusual yellow truck.

AM: Then what?
H: Well, then I saw the lift, to lift Mom into the truck.
AM: Can you describe the lift?
H: The lift is like and elevator. It goes all the way down to the ground, then Mom is rolled into it. And then the lift goes up to the same level as the truck. Then someone who is riding with mom rolls her into the back of the truck. In the truck, there were a bunch of chairs where the rest of us sat. [Pause] So Darling drove us to the resort. We couldn’t get two units, so we just got one unit that would sleep four, and so Jinky and Mom had to go home (to sleep there). [Another pause] So, let’s see. After a little rest, Darling picked us up so that we could visit a couple of relatives. We visited Edgar.

AM: Tell me how Edgar is related to us.
H: Edgar Varian. A cousin. He had a nice house with… He raises cocks for cock fights. I think his house has a Mexican flavor to it. Don’t you think?

AM: Why is that?
H: Because it is so colorful. What did you think of all those cocks?
AM: I thought it was really interesting to see all of their little shelters in the front yard. Since then I have seen a lot of those little shelters where cocks can go if it rains. But none of the others are painted so colorfully as the ones at Edgar’s place were. I asked one of the kids if it ever got too noisy. Those cocks were really loud.

H: They were probably used to it. Then we visited another house. Daisy and G-boy's. I’ve never seen a house with so many varieties of collections from dolls, to shoes, to souvenirs, to what?
AM: Hundreds of plastic gremlin-like creatures.
H: To whisky bottles…

AM: Then what?
H: Shirley, the sister of G-boy showed us Daisy’s bedroom. In there, there were even more collections. Shoes! She was competing with Imelda (Marcos)! I don’t think she had as many shoes as Imelda, but it was a competition. [Pause] I think after that we went to Morris’ house. We had a dinner again. Morris’s mother-in-law cooked us a nice meal. And I started my big load of wash.

AM: Tell me what you thought about Uncle Morrie’s house… and Grandma’s house.
H: Grandma’s house was a separate house. It had two rooms, with two beds in the bedroom in the back. There was a living room in front right?

AM: I think it was a kitchen, really.
H: So let’s see. Morris’s house was not yet finished. We went to his second floor which has the master bedroom and Dan’s room (Morris’s son). Neither of the rooms was quite finished yet. The lower level had the room where Jimmy (my youngest brother) slept when he visited Morris’. Jinky claims that part of the house – she put in nice tiles into that room all by herself because she knows it will eventually be her room.
The family, the mother, and the father, slept in the back portion of this compound [AM’s editorial note: this “compound” consisted of a plot of land with several different houses on it. One was Grandma’s, one was Morrie’s, and one belonged to Jinky and Ippai, Morrie’s wife, since their childhood.] On the side, there were two outdoor kitchens where cooking is done with firewood. So Deding, Morris’ mother-in-law, prepared a nice meal for us (there).

AM: So what did we do the next day?
H: The night was horrible – the stormy winds. Bernie and I thought the wind would blow the heavy porch furniture (away). We brought everyone’s shoes inside the house thinking everyone’s shoes might be blown away. It was noisy.

AM: This is while Aunt Terri and I were asleep, in the middle of the night.
H: The next day we had a nice breakfast on the porch, and the tide was rolling in. We thought the tide would come up to the building. After breakfast, Morris picked us up; we all took a drive to that resort beach. What was its name?

AM: I don’t remember already. I’ll have to look it up.
H: Dad might remember. It was a long ride (to get there). Ann Marie rode there on the motorcycle with Jinky. So Jinky’s little boy, Anuk, had a good time swimming and playing in the sea. Then we had lunch. After lunch we climbed up the hill to see the new pension hotel being built. They expect it to be finished at the end of July.

AM: What did you think of that?
H: The units have balconies which have a good view of the sea and the park. Then we went back to Siquijor. (This time) Dad rode with Jinky on the motorcycle. He had a good time.

AM: Yeah, I was mad because he stole my ride home!
H: You volunteered it to him.
AM: Yeah, you’re right. I made a mistake! [Note: I was just kidding. Later Dad said that this was one of the most fun things he has done in the Philippines so far. So, although I regretted not being able to ride any more (#*#*#!!), I’m really glad Dad got a chance to ride back instead of me.]

H: Jinky said Dad rocked a lot so she didn’t go as fast with Dad (as she did with you). She was afraid that he would tip over the motorcycle. [Pause] We thought we were late for Teri and Ann Marie’s massage, but the masseurs were not there yet. Write down here what you thought about the massage.

AM: Okay. I thought the massage was excellent. It was the first time I had ever gotten a full body massage in my life. It was supposed to be a 75 minute massage, but I’m pretty sure that lady massaged me for about an hour and forty minutes. She took so much time that Aunt Terri almost gave up her time because she thought we would be late for dinner. Anyway, the massage was excellent – I fell asleep for about 5 minutes during the massage because I was so relaxed. Aunty Terri paid for me, and I paid for the tip. It was great!

H: Terri didn’t think they gave a good facial though. What do you think?
AM: Well I didn’t expect it to be all that great because I was pretty sure that that island would never have all the fancy equipment that people use back home for giving facials. So I’m not surprised that it was different from what Aunty Terri is normally used to.

H: So then we had dinner. Jinky brought our washed clothes from her house. Jinky’s mom had finished it up for us.
AM: Yeah, that was really nice of her. She folded it up and everything.

H: Yeah, she got my soap though! [AM’s note later: Mom started ranting here about how much the soap cost and how long it will last. I asked her if she really wanted me to include that part in here, and she said “no, never mind.”] (Anyway), we all had dinner and then the kids went swimming.

AM: Tell me about the kids.
H: Jinky’s two boys and Darling’s three – one girl and two sons. It was dark but they had a good time. They knew how to dive. I don’t know where they learned how to do that. They did a beautiful job – they dove in parallel. I don’t think Morris could do that.
　　The good time was (then) marred by the owners (of the resort) who demanded that we pay a fee for the kids to use the pool. [AM’s note later: They didn’t tell us about this fee, which was really expensive, until about four hours later - after we had asked them and gotten their permission to have guests use their swimming pool.] We were not happy with the situation. So Terry took back her tip…and then paid the difference. The poor waiters.

AM: Yeah, the servers ended up suffering from the owners’ stinginess.
H: So we packed our clothes because we knew we had to get up at 4 am to go back to Dumaguete the next day.

AM: So how did we spend our day in Dumaguete?
H: We came in real early.
AM: Well we had to leave the hotel early, but then we had to wait at the docks a long time for the boat.
H: Oh, that’s right. So (after we got to the docks) we bought some bread, snacks and coffee. After the hour ferry ride, we unloaded our things at Teri’s hotel, and then hired a van to take a day tour of Dumaguete. Where did we go first? We didn’t go to the park first did we? (AM: Yeah, we did)

H: Yeah, it took us time to cash our travelers’ checks and Teri changed her dollars (before we went) [Mom looks aside at Dad as he walks by, passing our seats where we are sitting in the airport.] He (your Dad) makes me dizzy going round and round. [Pause] Then we went to the orphanage. Some cute babies. We want to adopt them. But apparently the parents are not allowed to pick their own child out. We talked to the director.

AM: Why aren’t they allowed to pick the child out?
H: Because it (the request) has to go through an agency in the United States. Then the US agency gets a hold of the agency in the Philippines. That is why it costs so much.

AM: [Looking up at the check-in counter.] Oh, it looks like the counter is open and people are lining up now.
H: Oh! Well, we should go get in line now.

Dad's front pocket

2006-06-26T01:22:00.000+09:00

My Dad's pocket
Originally uploaded by annmerry.

As the "chronicle" entries below might indicate, we've seen lots of pretty interesting stuff in the past few days since travelling in the Philippines. But, despite all the fascinating sites to take in, I have to say that one of the most comment-worthy of them all has been travelling along right beside me, under my nose since the day we got started: my dad's front pocket!

My dad, a retired engineer, has always carried a handy repertoire of goodies in his pocket since as far back as I can remember. While growing up, without fail, the family could always rely on Dad for his convenient stash of notecards, a mechanical pencil, a comb, and often his eyeglasses case, which he faithfully kept on hand for all emergency situations.

Over the years, the contents of his pocket seem to have expanded and evolved. Yesterday, when I happened to look down and take a gander at his new collection of carry-alongs, I was surprised to find that one of his newest additions is a white, plastic spoon! (See it there, pointing off diagonally, parallel to his pen?!) My dad absolutely loves icecream, so I suppose he just wants to make sure that he will always have the proper eating utensil on hand in preparation for that next delicious bite. (Dad was, by the way, an eagle scout as a teenager. So, it seems he is continuing to model the time-honored motto - "always be prepared" - right into his silver years.)

Also, among other interesting miscellanea in that front poche of his, Dad still keeps his notecards, glasses case, comb, and writing apparatus. Apparently he has also decided to add to his stash his left-over boarding stubs, his passport, and a convenient see-through ziploc baggy with which to carry local currency. Looks handy, to be sure, I told him. But I should have added that he'd better be careful. I imagine any pickpocket would find his front pocket an even more enticing and noteworthy attraction than I do.

Mother and Daughter ChroniclesDays 4-5: “Meeting relatives in Cebu”

2006-06-26T00:54:00.000+09:00

Today we are on a freight boat making our way from Cebu City to Dumaguete on Negros Island, where my grandmother has been living for the past year. As Mom and I reflect on things that have happened in the last day, my auntie, Teri (“T”), my mother’s younger sister joined our conversation. It was nice to have her in our discussion because she was able to recall different things than we were regarding what we have done and people whom we have met so far:

H: Okay, let’s see. Where did we leave off? We were on our way to Cebu. (When we got there) my brother Morris met us at the airport. Our luggage went into a different vehicle while we went in a car to the hotel. We got one room with three beds at the Cebu Midtown Hotel. While Bernie slept, Ann Marie, Terri (my sister), and I went to the grocery store to buy snacks and drinks. Then we went to the department store to buy a hairclip for Ann Marie and a pair of shoes for Terri.

AM: Okay, then what?
H: Then we rested in the room before going to dinner in Guadalupe.
AM: Okay.
H. Uhhh. The dinner at the restaurant was very informative. We learned some genealogical information about the Labra side.

AM: Do you remember anything in particular?
H: We learned that the Labra family is a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigg family. We took pictures of each group of families while we waited for our meal. (pause) What can you say more?

AM: Describe the setting.
T: It was a brand new chain in Guadalupe – a franchise – a barbecue. Recommended by Judge Jenny. Tables were set for about 20, and then about 50 showed up.

H: I think there were about 100.
T: At least 60. And that restaurant did a good job accommodating us. Most restaurants would have had a hard time handling that type of crowd unexpectedly. But anyway I think it turned out right.
H: We should have had a game – an icebreaker
T: If we had known how many would turn up.

AM: Aunty Teri, what were your impressions of the dinner?
T: I thought it came out well… considering. Considering how many people showed up…
H: The food was good, and there was a lot. But you didn’t get to eat that much.
They had the soup the barbecue and the noodles. They had the calamari, clam soup.
T: I never had any. Some people really liked the clam soup. I was so busy making sure that everyone had something to eat, that’s what I spent my time on. And two people were helping me. James, the cute little guy, and Rulfo.
We fed over 60 people for about $115. It was about 7000 pesos including the tip.
So, we could have had name tags. Everyone could have filled them out … and then we could have had them write down who their ancestor is.
H: At least we got to feed everyone.

T: But today!!! It was something else, wasn’t it? Paradise in all those shambles. I wonder if there isn’t a little bit of jealousy. Some people appeared so poor.
H: I couldn’t tell who was wealthy and who was poor.

AM: Why was this "paradise on earth”?
T: To get there it was really amazing. It was a bamboo bridge. What do they call those… hanging bridges? Anyway, up high! I’ve never seen anything like that since I was really small. Then going up and down trails and then up some steps up through the mountains, and then all of the sudden comes this magnificent house. And what looked like a flower plantation!
H: Yeah, she sells the flowers, she has four different people to help her work the flowers.

T: What was her name? Gosh, we should have taken notes.
H: We got lots of pictures though.

T: But the houses on the drive going up to this place looked like shacks. But this house was made of cement. Beautifully done and… oh my goodness! Wow!

AM: What about the breakfast at George’s house?
H: We had mango!! It was so good.
T: And rice sticks wrapped in banana leaves. I couldn’t bring myself to eat some of the other stuff though. Ann Marie had some!

AM: Yeah! It was good! I liked it.
T: You had the chicken and the adobo!
AM: Yeah, Dad did too. He liked the adobo.

T: Yes, it was very nice, and they were so generous.
H: And we got a family tree from George who owned the house. I think we learned that the Labra family was a pioneer family in Guadalupe. I think they were the ones that founded that district.

AM: Anything to sum up with?
T: Then we had to meet our ship! They were really generous, providing their cars to provide transportation for us.

H: What was that guy’s name? Rufo? He was so helpful.
T: And his wife, Aurora. She was so lovely.
H: Which one was she?

T: She is judge Jenny’s sister. Then… we ended up on this freight ship! I couldn’t get my upgrade!
H: Terri wanted a cruise ship, but we got a freight ship!
(laughter)

AM: Where are we headed now?
T: To Dumaguete. And it looks like a calm ocean. You know, this could be very rough. And this is going to be something like a 6 hour trip. We are scheduled to land at 6 pm.

The Mother Daughter ChroniclesDays 1-3: "Getting to Manila"

2006-06-24T23:11:00.000+09:00

My mom, Helen (aka "H") and I ("AM") have decided that we are going to chronicle our travels in the Philippines this summer so that people like my big brother, Eric D, can read about our travels from abroad. Right now we are sitting in the Manila domestic airport waiting to board our plane to Cebu City, the city where Mom was born and lived the first six or so year of her life. According to Mom, already - even though we've only been on the road for a couple of days yet - this trip has been one of the most challenging that she has ever experienced in her life. The following is Mom's and my conversation about why she feels she has had such a rough time of it so far.

(By the way, the picture here up top has, from left to right, on the top row: Danny, Bing, Helen, and Emma. And in the bottom row: Nena and Bernie. Next a little lower, there is a picture of me with Josann (Bing and Emma's youngest daughter) in Manila. And finally, the last picture has my grandma Maria, her caregiver Jinky, my Uncle Morry, and Auntie Terri. It was taken at the big dinner party on Saturday night in Cebu City.)

H: Our trip started with our drive to Raleigh in the truck with four heavy suitcases and two carry-ons. We stayed over night in Raleigh in order to give ourselves plenty of time the next day. We got on the airplane. Just as the airplane was ready to take off, the pilot was told that we needed to wait on the tarmac because of a tornado sighting in the Chicago area, where we were headed for our first lay-over. After three hours of waiting on the tarmac, we finally made it to Chicago. The pilot was very apologetic about keeping us out there waiting, but thought it was better than having everyone go back.
We finally arrived in Chicago, but we were too late. We had missed our connecting flight to Tokyo. We met a nice young man from North Carolina who had just come back from Thailand to see his son graduate from high school near Raleigh. This young man's name was Reggie Jackson! He had worked in Baghdad, Iraq for a year or two as a truck driver. Now that he had retired from trucking, he was contemplating what to do next. This is why he had gone to Thailand for a long vacation. He said that he wanted to travel in the Asian countries to find a place where he could be happy. We hope we see Reggie again.

AM: Why are yout talking about Reggie so much, Mom?
H: I like him.

AM: But you haven't explained how he spent the night with you.
H: Oh, well we ended up having to spend the night in Chicago. We finally found a hotel with reasonable rates, especially if Reggie chipped in with us and we stayed as a group. He took the sofa, and we took the king size bed. Reggie had a very good wireless computer. We were able to write to Ann Marie telling her about our situation.

AM: And what was that situation?
H: That we had missed our flight and would come a day later. So instead of spending the night (with her) in Tokyo, we spent the night in Chicago.

AM: Okay, what next?
H: So Eric (our son) called us at the hotel. I wanted to go to his place (in Milwaukee, WI) for the overnight stay, but Bernie (my husband) said that it would take too long to get there.

AM: Okay, let's sum this up faster.
H: Okay, we were finally able to leave Chicago for Narita (Japan), where we met Ann Marie. Narita airport was very confusing though. We got lost trying to find Northwest (for the connecting flight) and re-checking our luggage. Ann Marie finally found us. But she could not check in with us because she had forgotten her passport. She had to wait until her girlfriend brought the passport to her.

AM: loud embarassed laughter.
H: We also had to repack all of our bags because new weight restrictions were being applied to our luggage for the leg from Tokyo to Manila. But we were not expecting this. We sent one big suitcase to Ann Marie's apartment in Japan. So that allowed us a little more... what?

AM: (Trying to explain for her mom) Well the lady at the check in still gave us some leeway. Even after getting rid of one big suitcase, your bags were still way over the limit. So, how much time did all this take?
H: We thought we had plenty of time at check in, but because of all of these luggage problems, we barely made the boarding.
We finally made it to Manila where my cousins Bing and Emma Atilano met us. They had waited three hours outside the airport for us while we located our luggage, went through customs and then exchanged our money for pesos.

AM: So we spent the night at Bing and Emma's. Then what happened this morning?
H: Danny and Nena Delgado visited us at Emma's house.

AM: Who are they?
H: The Delgados are relatives on my maternal side.

AM: Can you be more specific?
H: Nena Delgado is my mother's first cousin. I don't know how we're related but my mother and Nena are first cousins on the Labra side (Labra is mom's mother's maiden name). I don't know. We never did get that straightened out.

AM: What happened after breakfast?
H: Bing took us to the airport. We decided to leave two boxes containig gifts for my brother, Morris, and his family at Bing and Emma's house.

AM: Why?
H: Because we were still way over weight. Even after leaving these boxes behind, we were still over weight.

AM: To sum up, where are we headed now?
H: We're headed for Cebu? We're going to meet Morris, my brother, who has planned a dinner for my mother's relatives in Guadalupe (a barrio in Cebu).

AM: Anything else?
H: Morris plans a big, big dinner get-together.

AM: That's all for today?
H: That's all for today.

Boracay Island, Philippines

2006-06-22T08:50:00.000+09:00

Boracay Island, Philippines
Originally uploaded by Bernard Siao.

Hello Beach. Here I come!

Self-Expression

2006-06-21T11:23:00.000+09:00

Expression is 表現に
my way out of 私は私の
the impression I get 出口を探す
It cannot stay 印した象は
inside me unsaid 表わさずにはおられない

This is a five-line poem (五行歌) written by my new friend Takao Nakanishi of Shonan Kokusai Village. I think it expresses nicely why some people keep (apparently meaningless) blogs (i.e. like me!), take pictures, paint, sing, or participate voluntarily in practically any humanistic endeavor. I think Nakanishi-san captures the human need for self-expression quite elegantly - both in Japanese and English.

Mom and Dad's Crazy Summer Itinerary

2006-06-21T10:38:00.000+09:00

Unbelievable! When I first read this schedule my jaw dropped. From North Carolina to the Philippines, Japan, Korea, then back to Virginia, to Russia then, finally to Austria. My parents are travelling like mad dogs this summer. Check out their schedule below:

Overall itinerary:
June 20 -- Drive to Raleigh, N.C. to stay overnight in motel. Leave our truck there.
June 21 -- Fly from Raleigh, with plane change in Chicago, to Tokyo/Narita airport. Arrive June 22.
June 22, 23 -- Layover at Holiday Inn near the Narita airport. Our daughter, Ann Marie, will join us in the evening June 22. Ann Marie will go to the Philippine Islands with us. June 23 our Japanese friend form Tokyo, Mrs. Keiko Sugiura, will come out to Narita and have brunch with us.
June 23 -- Fly to Manila to be met by and stay overnight with Bing and Emma Atilano. Emma is a paternal cousin of Helen's.
June 23 till July 9 -- In the Philippine Islands. (See detailed itinerary below.)

July 9 -- Fly to Tokyo/Narita airport and travel by train to Hayama where Ann Marie lives.
July 9-10-- Stay at Sokendai (international center)
July 11-- Go to Fuji (stay in Ohtsuki hostel),
Bernie hopes to hike up Mt. Fuji (elevation 12,385 feet) with Ann Marie and maybe one or two of her friends on the 12th
July 12-- Spend night in Sokendai. See Kamakura on the 13th
July 13-15-- Spend nights at Suzuki-san’s. On July 15 morning, go to Nikko (tentative)
July 16--Spend night in Nikko at the Daiyagawa Youth Hostel
July 17-18--Spend nights at Sokendai
July 19 -- Fly from Tokyo to Seoul, Korea.

July 19 till July 23 -- In South Korea, in and near Seoul. Staying in two different homes of English teacher friends. Expecting to see many English teacher friends in one or two restaurant dinners. Bernie hopes to take one or two dayhikes in the mountains with English teacher friends.
July 23 -- Fly to Raleigh, N.C., arriving July 23. Stay overnight in motel.
July 24 -- Drive to Lynchburg.

July 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 -- At home.

July 29 -- Drive to Washington, D.C. area. Leave our car with relatives, the Francos, in Reston, VA. Board plane at Dulles Airport for Russia.
July 29 or 30 -- Arrive in Moscow.
July 30 till August 13 -- In Russia. With Elderhostel tour organization. First visit Moscow (a few days). Then inland riverboat cruise on rivers, canals, and lakes to St. Petersburg with stops in half a dozen towns along the way (about a week). Then visit St. Petersburg (a few days).
August 13 -- Fly to Vienna, Austria (east end of Austria). We will be met by Marlies Schmuck, a very-long-time friend, and her son Philip.
August 13 -- Take train to Brigenz, Austria (extreme west end of Austria).
August 13-18 -- Visit the extended Schmuck family, very long-time friends, in and near Brigenz. Take one-day day trip with borrowed car to visit Hans and Rosie Krapf, very long-time friends, in nearby St. Gallen, Switzerland.
August 18 -- Take train back to Vienna. Stay overnight with Marlies and Philip.
August 19 -- Fly from Vienna to Dulles Airport.

Detailed itinerary for the Philippine Islands:
June 23 -- Fly to Manila.
June 24 -- Fly to Cebu City, Island of Cebu. Overnight on Cebu. Visit relatives on Helen's mother's side (from her mother's side).
June 25 -- Take boat to Siquijor, an island so small that even many Filipinos don't know it. Helen's mother, Maria, lives there.
June 26, 27, 28 -- On Siquijor and in Dumaguete, a city across the "bay" on the south end of the island of Negros. Helen's brother, Morris, lives in Dumaguete.
June 28 -- Take the midnight boat from Dumaguete to Cebu, arrive 6 AM June 29.
June 29 -- Fly from Cebu to Bacolod, a city near the north end of the island of Negros. Other relatives of Helen's mother, Maria, live in Bacolod. These are Maria's half siblings (the Francos) and their descendants. (From Maria's father's side.) One of them is Santiago Franco, Maria's half-brother and the father of Joe Franco of Reston, VA.
June 29 till July 2 -- in Bacolod.
July 2 -- Fly from Bacolod to Manila.
July 2,3,4 -- Travel overland (same island of Luzon) with a tour group to Baguio. This is sight-seeing. We will see some of the famous rice terrace hills.
July 5 -- Commercial tour of Baguio. This is a mountain resort city Helen fondly remembers from her childhood. We have no relatives in Baguio.
July 6 -- Fly from Baguio to Mania.
July 6, 7, 8 -- In Manila with the Atilanos. Commercial tour(s) of Manila.
July 9 -- Fly to Tokyo/Narita Airport.

What in the Hell? It's a Jizo.

2006-06-20T09:06:00.001+09:00

They seem to be whereever you go in Japan - especially around the countryside. Although their Japanese name "Ji-zo" (written with the two kanji "地" [ji,for "earth"] and "蔵" [zo, for "safe, storage place"]) seems to allude to that which is terrestrial, these petite, seemingly harmless statues actually serve as guardians of souls in hell. To quote one web site (referred to me by my erudite Buddhist buddy, Bill Dunbar) on Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, the jizo represent "saviors from the torments of hell."

The site also says that the jizo is one of the most beloved of all Japanese divinities - ah! So maybe that explains why these little stone critters seem to crop up all over the place: in random street allies, near bus stops, on the side of rice paddies, and in public parks - not to mention all those jizo in the temples and shrines. Maybe that explains why they're often clad in homemade bibs, crocheted shawls, and little red hats.

The Jizo apparently ease suffering and shorten sentences of those serving time in hell. Given their names and their prevalence in public, earthly milieu, one is led to wonder if these guys are also called on to alleviate suffering from hell on earth - the this-wordly, hellish lifestyles of Japanese salary men; the housebound, bento-making tedia of housewifery, or suffering in the notorious "exam hells" of lost, Japanese childhoods.

Don't get me wrong - I actually think life in Japan is pretty blissful. (It just suddenly overcame me - how easy it is to parrot off all those terrible, threadbare stereotypes.) In fact, my interest in Jizo comes from a practice in Japan that might surprise some people, and has yet to make its way into the hall of fame of Japanese cliches. Worshipping unborn fetuses.

Yes, you heard me right: My interest in Jizo has to do with their relevance to aborted, miscarried, and stillborn babies. They are called Mizuko Jizo, or "Water Baby Jizo," little cute statues, dressed in homemade costumes, worshipped for their ability to serve as guardians to lives which have ended early. They are an appeal to unborn beings who float in a "watery world awaiting birth." Apparently, the practice of bereaved parents who buy jizo statues for their prematurely dead children is not a tradition adapted from mainland Buddhism in Asia. Instead it constitutes a "native" practice adapted to assuage contemporary issues in modern Japanese life.

Searching for My Honey Bee Quote - No, Compliment - of the Month

2006-06-17T13:22:00.000+09:00

My hallmate, Bejon, age 27, from Bangladesh, and getting his PhD in genetics, wrote the following to me in an e-mail today.

"Oh En Marry, I forgot to say that you looked very pretty this morning. I think you need a handsome Japanese boy friend for time pass. Because, flower has no value if honey bee does not know this."

How flattering - and charming. Thank you Bejon. And thank you for giving me permission to publish your classy advice in my blog... I'll get right to work on finding my honey bee!

Cover Girl!

2006-06-15T12:50:00.000+09:00

Cover Girl!
Originally uploaded by annmerry.

Cover Girl!

My little friend, Maria, age 5, just made the cover of a Japanese magazine called "Aka Sugu Kizzu." Isn't she great? I like the gun in her pocket. The magazine just came out today. Her mother reports that she likes to see the cashier's faces when she sends her daughter to buy up copies of the monthly mag. To see the Aka Sugu Kizzu web site: akasugu.net/kids/. For more pictures of Maria and her big sista, Karen, please visit "my favorite stuff" on my flickr page.

To Prostitute or Not to Prostitute - that is the question.

2006-05-16T20:14:00.000+09:00

Almost ten years ago I worked for the Nagano Olympic Committee in preparation for the 19th Winter Games, here in Japan. I worked in Public Relations where, for better or worse, I got a crash course on some of the "Do's and Dont's" of putting a Big spin on mundane, everyday operations, all made in anticipation of "world class sports."

Everyday I was phoned by reporters who were hoping to catch a scoop - usually of the scandalous or shocking sort - because, let's face it: that's what sells magazines and newspapers. Most of the journalists were interested in our preparedness for the possibility of terrorism (even before 9/11- hard to believe), whether our computers (sponsored by IBM) were on the verge of crashing or not, or just how many egregious sums of Yen had been spent under the table to convince the International Olympic Committee to bring the games to Nagano.

The reporters were pretty obnoxious, but, fortunately for my then-more-innocent outlook on life, they never forced me to deal with questions about prostitutes. Why? For one thing, in contrast to Germany, prostitution has (for better or for worse - I'll leave that debate aside for now) been illegal in Japan since the American Occupation. Germany on the other hand, apparently legalized prostitution in 2002. Based on the passing of this watershed legislation, it seems the planners of the 2006 World Cup Games have had to add an unprecedented division to its organizing committee: a working group on the construction of temporary brothels. Probably not once considered a fleeting possibility for Nagano, an estimated 40,000 prostitutes from around the world are anticipated to join the 400,000 prostitutes who already ply their trade in Germany.

From a PR standpoint, the decision to legalize prostitution in Germany has certainly encouraged a lot of discourse regarding the relationship between human trafficking and the World Cup. Is this good for publicizing the World Cup? Well, the cynical side of me says, Yeah, of course! However, I also believe that the issue is making the Cup's publicists work harder for their money. Not surprisingly a number of feminists and human rights groups are calling on Germany to change its stance on prostitution. I learned about this problem, through an editorial in the International Herald Tribune, which was written by the president of Equality Now, an international women's rights organization. Even countries and trasnational organizations have gotten involved in the issue. The chairman of the global human rights subcommittee in the US Congress, for instance, recently condemned German planners as serious violators of international trafficking laws. Meanwhile the minister of justice in Sweden, Thomas Bodstroem, warns that the enormous payload of legalized prostitution naturally attracts "dishonest people willing exploit to young women and children."

For me the verdict is not so easy. Of course legalized prostitution makes it easier for your more "unsavory" types to conduct their commerce in Germany. But at least, I'm thinking, as long as it is legal, the women (and men - let's not forget about them) selling their bodies for a living are no longer the primary targets of prosecutors. At least with its legalization, law enforcers can spend their time more efficiently tracking down illegal trafficking rings and slavery syndicates. Moreover, in some articles I've read, prostitutes claim to feel safer and better protected in Germany. So I guess, in sum, for now, I'm all for the temporary stalls. I wish the division for temporary brothel construction the best of luck. And may their PR advocates suffer less at the hands of the media than those before them.

Memoirs of a Sake Breweryお酒屋さんについての思いで

2006-05-02T20:34:00.000+09:00

Back in March, I visited a fantastic sake brewery in Yamanouchi Town of Nagano Prefecture. The company, called Tamamura-Honten & Co., operates at the bottom of Shiga Heights, home to the world's largest network of ski resorts and the venue for women's downhill and the super giant slolam in the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Founded in 1805 (Bunka 2), the company boasts two hundred years of experience and has brewed a local brand of sake called "engi" (縁喜) for the past century. The brewery was recently renovated and reopened by SATO Kisoji VII, the seventh generation descendant of the company's original founder, SATO Kisoji I.

Of course visitng any brewery is bound to be fun. As with about any desirable visit to a brewery, my friends, Yuriko and Matt, took the opportunity to try lots of of homemade sake and beer. After shootin back a couple shots and getting a quick little buzz, we mozied on up to the second floor of the brewery, which contains a collection of modern Japanese art and local artifacts. These apparently belong to the Sato family, who - we found out later - live just across the street from the brewery. Before leaving, Matt and I stocked up on some sake and beer to take back to friends in Kanagawa, we took lots of pictures of antiques in and around the brewery, and indulged in accepting some free sake cups from one of the owners. Incidentally, we found the coolest antique, an old, Japanese fire truck, sitting conveniently between the entrance to the brewery and a modern-day, Japanese vending machine full of Kirin beer.

The highlight of the visit, however, was yet to come: an unexpected invitation from the owner of Tamamura Honten (whom I assume is Sato VI since Sato VII, pictured on the company web page, looks about 20 years younger) into the family's private residence. The invitation was totally unexpected and an amazing and rare treat. Mr. Sato - I'm just going to keep calling him that until I find out otherwise - was clearly the descendant of a prosperous line of rural aristocrats (read gohno). His house was the largest, most traditional, and opulent country dwelling I have ever seen in Japan.

Truly and deeply inspired by this trip to the brewer's kingdom, I have decided to jot down just a few notes here on the history and process of sake brewing (oi la la): Apparently Japanese people have been brewing sake in some shape or form for the past 2000 years - that is, ten times as long as the Sato family has been doing it! The alcohol is brewed using a microorganism called koji, yeast, and a special type of rice. Japanese rice is generally divided into two types: table rice that is eaten, and sake rice (sakamai) that is used exclusively for sake brewing. This variety of rice is large-grained, soft, and has a low protein content. Requiring more complicated methods for cultivating, this type of rice is much more expensive than table rice.

The ingredient called koji converts the starch in the rice into sugar. Thus, compared to the fermentation of wine, that of sake is more complicated, involving a second step. With wine, yeast is added directly to pressed grapes in order to created alcohol. However, with sake, the fundamental ingredient, rice, cannot begin fermenting until it has been converted to sugar through the use of koji. After the sugar has been produced, yeast is then added, (of course, fermentation takes place) which in turn produces alcohol. Because these two processes (Saccharification and fermentation) occur in the same container, the process is apparently called "multiple parallel fermentation."

Sake has an alcohol content of 13-16% (oh la la). As with most brews, the quality of water used is extremely important. With this in mind, the Tamamura Honten's position at the base of Shiga Heights seems especially strategic as the natural waters trickling down from the mountains are apparently the most essential ingredient for producing high quality sake.

Waseda Modern History Workshop

2006-04-13T22:14:00.001+09:00

It's official. I'm scheduled to present a lecture at the Modern History Workshop which takes place at Waseda University every month. So NERVOUS. Here is a link to info about my presentation: The LINK is here! (click click click)

"O-Shinobi" お忍び

2006-03-30T10:32:00.000+09:00

On Monday, March 27, I had the most amazing opportunity to meet, shake hands and speak with the emperor and empress of Japan! The emperor Akihito and his wife Michiko-sama visited Sokendai University this week on what is called "O-Shinobi" (お忍び) in Japan. According to my favorite on-line dictionary, this expression means "incognito." Thus, for the emperor and empress, the visit was unofficial, there were no press corps, and there were fewer guards and police than if the event had been official.

Apparently the emperor and empress were interested in talking to young grad students. My professor, Sharon Traweek, and I speculated on why they visited Sokendai in particular. What we came up with was: a) Their vacation home, known as Go-Yotei (御用邸) is in Hayama, the same town in which our university is located. So getting here was pretty convenient for them - we're only about a ten-minute drive up the road. b) The emperor's second son, Prince Akishino, graduated from Sokendai with a PhD degree in biology. c) Sharon speculated that, like many parents, the couple must be interested in seeing where their son went to school. Furthermore, she thinks the prince is scheduled to start a project here at Sokendai in the fall. It must be pretty hard for the imperial couple to simply show up to check out a place. This might be the way they decided to handle the situation. d) We also heard that the emperor and empress are friends with Professor Takahata, one of the prince's advisors when he studied here, and one of the acting directors of Sokendai. I heard that Takahata-sensei plays tennis with the couple sometimes on the Sokendai tennis courts. (The imperial vacation home apparently does not have its own tennis courts, so if the royal couple want to play, they come up here!)

Whatever their reasons for visiting, the couple arrived here at 11:45 am. I posted pictures of their entourage of cars on my flickr site. I was able to take pictures of the arrival from my dorm room window. After arriving, the couple went inside to the cafeteria to have a normal lunch with everyone. Some of my lucky colleagues got the opportunity to sit next to the couple and converse with them during lunchtime. One colleague, Yokoyama-san, said they talked mostly about science as the students at the table were physicists or biologists in-training. Apparently the couple knew many things already and asked extremely intelligent and thoughtful questions.

After lunch, the school director, Kodaira-san directed the imperial couple over to the table where my colleagues and I were eating. He wanted to introduce the emperor and empress to the visiting foreigners at Sokendai. I was lucky in that I happened to be standing closest to them, so I was the first one they talked to. Sharon thinks they showed a surprising amount of interest in my answers to their questions about my research. I think the reason they talked to me for so long was simply because I was first in line and they didn't want to be so rude as to move too quickly on to the next person.

In any event, we had the conversation in Japanese. At first, I did not feel shy at all and said "Good afternoon, it's a pleasure to meet you!" (Konnichi-wa, hajimemashite) in a confident voice. They said very little in the usual return, but they asked me pleasantly where I was from, if I spoke Japanese, and what type of research I was conducting. When I said "history," they asked what time period, and I answered "Meiji." They replied that this was a very interesting period to be studying, and I agreed!

Then the empress wanted to know what I thought of Sokendai and if I had made any friends at the university. When she asked me this, she made a gesture to the other Japanese in the room as if to suggest, "are these (Japanese) people here treating you hospitably." Of course I said "yes" (okage-sama desu), and I told her I thought Sokendai was a beautiful place. The empress agreed with me that the scenery was beautiful and the university was situated in a lovely, natural setting.

After this, the emperor asked me what, specifically, I studied about the Meiji period. I was worried about this because most Japanese people rarely understand my answer "treaty ports" (kyou ryuu chi), so I thought there was a good chance the imperial couple would not either. (Because most people don't understand me, I am usually paranoid that my pronunciation is completely off) But the emperor did not even blink, and responded, "Oh, such as Yokohama and Nagasaki," to which I responded "Yes! Yes!"

At this point in the conversation, I was starting to feel extremely awkward. I was worried that my Japanese was terrible, and that I was not speaking politely enough. In Japanese, there is an honorific form (keigo) which I never learned very well and so avoided using on Monday. The more I talked, the more self-conscious I became about how improper my Japanese must be. Sharon told me later that my voice got smaller and smaller, to the point where she could barely hear me anymore. (Another Japanese friend told me later though that she heard everything I said and that my Japanese was polite and proper.) Yokatta! In any event, as I said I was feeling extremely self-conscious and started simply answering questions (that I don't remember anymore) with just "yes," "yes" and even "excuse me, I'm sorry" (sumimasen, sumimasen- which literally means, "sorry for exceeding what is proper behavior"). At this point, the school director started to encourage them away toward the other foreigners. (Pheewww!)

The emperor and empress next talked to Brien Hallet, a visiting scholar from U Hawai'i, and then Sharon, my professor, in perfect English. Here, there was an interesting exchange when Sharon explained that she was a Historian of Science. The empress looked to the emperor and said, "My husband is interested in history of science. He has published an article on this topic." The emperor was very humble about this and was trying to make it seem like no big deal.

Sharon looked up the article later and sent us the following links and notes:
The article appeared in the journal Science as part of a special issue on science in Japan: "Science in Japan: A Historical Viewpoint - Early Cultivators of Science in Japan", Science Vol. 258, No. 5082, 23 October 1992, pp. 578-580.
http://www.jstor.org/view/00368075/di002185/00p00744/0

The article is mentioned on the Kunaicho [Imperial Household Agency of the Japanese government] English webpage:
http://www.kunaicho.go.jp/e03/ed03-01.html

It was reprinted in the Japan Echo, vol. 27, no. 1, 2000, with a commentary in that issue on the imperial tradition of research by TAKASHINA Shuji, Director General, National Museum of Western Art
http://www.japanecho.co.jp/sum/2000/270103.html

Apparently the emperor has published many articles and books, and he is an avid ichthyologist. The official web page on "Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress and other Members of the Imperial Family" describes the emperor's works in more detail.

"O-Shinobi" お忍び (Continued)

2006-03-29T01:24:00.000+09:00

O-Shinobi
Originally uploaded by annmerry.

A picture of lunch with the imperial couple.
For more pictures, please check out my Flickr website.

The Masters' Gaze on Women in Hanamachi巨匠が描いた花街の女たち

2006-03-24T15:37:00.000+09:00

From March 17-19, I attended the Japan Foundation Film Series (Part 5) held by the Japan Foundation Forum, Akasaka. I wanted to write about it here as a way to recollect what movies I saw, and to add some of my thoughts and ideas on the event.

Here is the list of movies and a lecture I saw. I'm planning on posting my own thoughts and comments, bit by bit, by the title of each movie:

March 17 (Fri.)

19:00 YOSHIWARA THE PLEASURE QUARTERS
妖刀物語　花の吉原百人斬り by UCHIDA Tomu, 1960

This movie didn't really make a big impression on me, although I enjoyed it a lot. One reaction I had was that this is not a realistic portrait of Yoshiwara - something about the costumes and sets seemed too fake - kind of like watching the set of a US sitcom.

I went to this movie with my friend Koichi, who made a good comment - and I agree. The movie portrays focuses on the greediness, ambition, and mercenary characteristics of BOTH men and women. A husband and wife couple own the ageya (~pleasure house) and work together to take advantage of Jirozaemon, a naive customer who has fallen in love with Tamatsuru, the house's ambitious geisha.

Tamatsuru is an interesting case too. She is also greedy and quite mercenary in her relationship with Jirozaemon. Knowing that her client's obsession with her is her only potential tool for gaining access to the prestigious position of taiyu, she plays with Jirozemon's emotions in order to bleed him dry of all of his savings. In the end, when Jirozaemon experiences temporary financial straits, she and her brothel owners not only shun him, but feel no compunction in taunting and abusing his worth and self esteem.

By the end of the film series, I came to question how much agency the women of the pleasure quarters seemed to exhibit in each of the movies. In Women are Born Twice, for example, the main protagonist, Koen, seems to be in charge of her actions. It is her decision to leave the ageya to work as a hostess at her friend's cafe. She also tends to decide when to take vacation, with whom, and whom to see as her lover. By contrast, the women in The World of Geisha not only seem trapped in their line of work, but abused, sexually and psychologically. In one scene, we see the madame of a brothel practically raping a new apprentice.

In any event, with Tamatsuru in Yoshiwara we see more of a nuanced tapestry of agency, abuse and imprisonment. Tamatsuru is smart enough to figure out how to manipulate Jirozaemon, and to her credit, she does so skillfully and adeptly. Nevertheless, she is abused by her colleagues for having a history of working as a mere "street whore," before having been arrested and indentured to the ageya. At the end of the movie, Tamatsuru attains the coveted position of taiyu based primarily on her own cunning and resolve. Having achieved such success on her own merits, her character seems to announce that despite their hard lives, prostitutes and geisha can command their own destinies, albeit within the narrow and marginal walls of the pleasure quarters. However, in the last scene, screenwriter YODA Yoshikata reproaches the viewer for succumbing to this false sense of power and achievement with a one final, dramatic blow: Jirozaemon is witnessed stabbing Tamatsuru in the full splendor of her debut as the grand taiyu in a parade on the streets of Yoshiwara.

March 18 (Sat.)
13:30 WOMEN ARE BORN TWICE
女は二度生まれる by KAWASHIMA Yuzo, 1961

15:15 LECTURE: "Women in Hanamachi—Seen through the Japanese Cinema"
Lecture by TSUNEISHI Fumiko, Film Curator, National Film Center

18:00 THE WORLD OF GEISHA
四畳半襖の裏張り by KUMASHIRO Tatsumi, 1973
Starting in 1971, Nikkatsu film studios ("We place a value on Pleasure... More Feeling to More People") concentrated on making "pink films" with big budgets and famous directors. The company used the term "Roman Porno" to describe pink films.

My friends (Kathy and Jackie) and I debated over this movie over coffee as soon after we got out of the theater. Kathy and Jackie were convinced that the film was "porn," while I, on the other hand, was not so quick to agree. True, technically this film is described as an indisputable classic of Nikkatsu 'Roman Porno,'" in the Japan Foundation Forum movie series handout. So maybe I should just give it up, and agree with how other people see it, and perhaps with the genre in which it was probably intentionally created.

Among my reasons for not wanting to call this movie "porn" however were that for one, the acting was quite good - especially the women's acting. I thought that although the movie might portray situations which dehumanize women, this is distinctly different from dehumanizing theactuallyy women who act out the characters in the movie. I wonder, how can a movie dehumanize women if it serves as a showcase for women's skills for nuanced and thoughtful acting.
In addition, I thought the movie perceptively and humorously ribald. M-W defines "ribald" as 'depicting or referring to sexual matters in a way that is unacceptable in polite society,' a definition which many might decide categorically situates the movie in the realm of "pornographic." But I disagree. There are number of movies, songs, and books (i.e. "There's Something about Mary") which reference sex "impolitely" andmischievouslyy, but are not intended to cause sexual excitement.

March 19 (Sun.)
13:30 THE WOMAN OF THE RUMOR (aka The Woman in Question)?
噂の女 by MIZOGUCHI Kenji, 1954

15:30 UNDER SILK GARMENTS
偽れる盛装 by YOSHIMURA Kozaburo, 1951

18:00 NIHONBASHI
日本橋 by ICHIKAWA Kon, 1956

Of all the movies, I liked this one the least. But honestly, I was pretty tired of watching endless dramas (melodramas?) about poor, abused women at this point. This was the third movie of the day, and the only way I could face it was by downing a quick jug of beer across the street at Pronto during the hour intermission.

Jackie, my new friend, also saw the movie and agreed; the movie was overly dramatic and after the first 60-70 minutes, one found oneself wondering when the movie was going to end. Another reason I thought the movie was worse than the others was that the acting was pretty pitiful, and the sets reminded me more of sets from the theater. Backgrounds, such as cityscapes, were simply created by hanging pastel posters behind the actors and a few maginal props.

Another thing that I was tired of at this point was the overriding theme in these Japanese movies that people's lives were destined to misery. Perhaps that is the central and realistic theme of the Yoshiwara, but in these movies there was an added element of practically choosing the most miserable - self-flagellating? - destiny utterly possible.

Ode to the Super Bowl:My Take on Americana

2006-02-07T17:02:00.000+09:00

WARNING: To some, the language and pictures in this poem may be offensive. Please do not continue if toplessness offends you... I dedicate this poem to my dear dad, "Bernie the Bard."

Arms Control. Super bowl. Pass to goal.
It’s a whole, Freak patrol.

Bright lights, Stars and Stripes. Men in tights.
In the bleachers, Condee Rice.

Copyrights. Commercial hypes. Praising fights.
Name the price, More sound bytes.

In open air. Kick-off prayer. Girls with flair.
Skin so bare, Big fake pair.

Let’s all revel In Aaron Neville. Man for hire.
With a choir, Church attire. Should retire.

Tat on face. Amazing Grace. What a place.
US space. WAY off base, Mental case.

Wearing robes. Music flows. One big pose.
Football pros, Stadium hos.

In for more? Whats in store?
We prayed before. Now, time for war.

What a bore. Football whore.

Big high stakes. Station breaks. Shakes and steaks.
Lots of fakes.

My heart aches.

Now I've seen it all

2006-01-28T20:08:00.000+09:00

Spell with Flickr letters at this random website. Some people are clearly more addicted to Flickr than me. And some people are clearly a lot crazier about the web too.

昨日の日没と今日の疲れThe last few hours

2006-01-08T14:07:00.000+09:00

My jet lag is killing me. Although I went to bed last night around 11 pm, I woke up at a bright and early 4:30 this morning. Rather, it wasn't so "bright," because the sun didn't come out until abut 7 am.

Again, I went hiking today in an attempt to wear myself out. I think it's working, because I'm beat now, and now that I'm back, I really want to hunker down for a nice long cat nap. Except it's only 2:13 in the afternoon. So, now I'm just buying time, trying to keep myself awake for at least another 6 hours.

The sunset last night was incredible. Here is a picture I caught of it from my room window. (Can you believe I live in such an incredibly BEAUTIFUL setting!!!?!?! ) It still amazes me that I am living in a place as gorgeous as this as a mere (underpaid and unrecognized) PhD student, living only 1.5 hours from Tokyo. Today, the weather was almost as clear as it was yesterday, so I got another great picture of Mount Fuji on my way into the dorm from my "hike." I took this at the outlook point just about 50 meters down the hill from our university. Enjoy... (I call this photo "Fuji in January") :-)

Actually, I should not really call what I did today a "hike" because I never found the trail. I was heading for Mt. Futago from the Nagae Intersection here in Hayama Town. A word to the wise (and the not-so-wise): do not attempt this hike by referring to the "Miura Hanto Hiking Course Guide" map. Although the map is pretty - got lots of beautiful glossy pictures and colorful details - it hardly gets you where you need to go. I discovered today that the map lacks complete detail. Next time I will do my homework. Thanks to this "course guide" map, I was walking around Nagae neighborhood for two hours trying to pick up back roads and trails to the Futago (Twin) Mountains. Impossible.

Although I really didn't get the hike that I wanted, I did have a few interesting experiences. First, by walking around aimlessly in people's back back alleys, I saw a rural (and poorer) side to Hayama that I had not been previously aware of. Some of the houses deep deep behind the main thoroughfares greatly contradict Hayama's pristine image as the emperor's summer resort. Some of these houses were made of tin and cement and had random collections of junk spewing from their windows and all over their yards. One house I passed had a collection of tractors, tombstones, and other brick-a-brack, waiting for the chance-by consumer, perhaps. The total lack of order around these poor hovels reminded me of an article I once read by a former professor, Andrew Gordon, that argued that despite their post-war image as industrious and efficient, "the Japanese" were not necessarily intrinsically orderly. (If I remember correctly,) Gordon provides examples of slothful and derelict work habits exhibited by laborers in the early 20th century to make his point that Japanese workers were not always as inherently diligent as the media might make them out today. For me, seeing such all-out untidiness and rusticism in the crevices of rural Hayama, I couldn't help but think that so-called (Western senses of) "modernity" and "industrialism" certainly do not yet pervade all of contemporary Japan.

Second, when I chanced into some of the back trails behind these old encampments, I was confronted with yet another side of Japan, which I must admit, did seem to measure up to some of the stereotypes I have learned about in school. What I am trying to described here is some sense of mysteriousness in nature. For example, behind one tucked-away hamlet, I found myself walking in a wild, rustling bamboo thicket. Amidst the thicket, there were streams of light and shadows and intermittent stirs of wind. The images and sounds reminded me of the forest spirits from Miyazaki Hayao's cute anime, Tonari no Totoro. As I walked around the bamboo grove, I nearly tripped on several offerings in the shape of a few flowers in and old jar of water, and a couple of rocks piled up on one another. After climbing a bit higher and deeper into the woods, I happened upon a decidedly small, out-of-the-way shrine.

To find such a site, barely larger than a doll house, I wondered to myself, who in the world must be tending to these seemingly unknown establishments. I've never met one Japanese who acknowledges a sense of religion or spirituality, much less someone who seems interested in caring for such homemade and hidden shrines. Surely I need to meet more Japanese people so I can figure out what is going on here. I imagine that these shrines might be being kept up by people from older generations - but, what has kept these shrines going so long, for thousands of years, apparently, in the first place? And are people my age and younger going to pick up and carry on these traditions? If so, I sure would like to meet them - to see how and when this (ancient?) tradition gets passed on.

時差ぼけである私Back "Home" in Japan

2006-01-07T17:21:00.000+09:00

After getting back to Japan on Thursday, I've been suffering from some majorly intense jetlag. This morning I woke up at 5:00 am - after only sleeping about two hours. After mucking around in my little dorm room for about an hour, I passed some time watching the documentary "OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" until the sun came out about an hour later. Then I decided to go hiking, in an effort to live up to my new year's resolution of getting more exercise on a regular basis. The hiking was also my attempt to thoroughly fatigue myself by inhaling lots of fresh mountain air so that maybe I might sleep better tonight.

(Incidentally, OUTFOXED is a must-see for anyone interested in better understanding why the FOX "news" channel is bashed all the time as a "right wing" pundit and the ruin of contemporary journalism. My favorite line in the whole movie was something like this: "I don't condemn Fox as a bastion of ultra conservativism. What I DO condem it for is for touting itself fraudulently as the source of 'fair and balanced' news.")

Finally around 8 am, I was ready to catch the hourly bus out of here, down to Zushi. I chose my destination, the highest peak in the Miura Peninsula with the help of an old book I keep around,Day walks Near Tokyo by Gary D'A. Walters (what a great middle initial!). Although I took Mr. Walters' advice (for Tokyoites) and started my journey to hiking trail from Shin-Zushi Station, I learned in retrospect that I could have saved about an hours' time by simply walking to the bottom of my neighborhood in Shonan International Village. Little did I know that the start of the trail at Maedabashi bus stop, was actually just right down the hill from me, just past Koyasu Village and a several blocks past the Kuruwa bus stop. As this map I lifted from the Shonan International Village website shows, the Kuruwa bus stop is just down the road, and Mount Ohgusa is just adjacent to Shonan Village! (The Maedabashi Stop is three stops past, or about a leisurely 15-minute walk away.)

Shonan International Village From Mount Ohgusa

Anyways, the bus rides gave me a chance to warm up while the sun came out. Finally when I got out of the bus at Maedabashi Stop, (on the Keihin Kyuhkou Buses #4,5,6,7, or 8 - this is different from Walters' explanation which has become a little bit outdated), the entrance to the hiking trail was clearly marked. As Walters writes, there is a lane to the left, just past the bus stop and a map sign board. After following this path straight for about 10 minutes, I was finally on the trail, which soon made a steep ascent toward the mountain top.

Radio Tower near the Summit

The highlight of the hike was reaching the summit, where there is a 360 degree panoramic view of the entire Miura Peninsula. One of the most exciting things for me was being able to see my own village, Shonan Kokusai Mura, in the distance. For the first time since living here, I was catching a glimpse of my own mountain-top residence from above! Now that I was finally there, I could also get a really great view of the Hayama Golf Course. I was also near a radio observation tower that I had viewed many times from afar, at Sokendai. I had always wondered how/if I might ever find that radio tower.

Once I got there, I read on a sign next to the radio tower that it is operated by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (国土通行省), the national bureaucratic arm that, among other things, administers drivers and pilots licenses.

The Ohgusa Observation Deck

At the summit there are a number of concrete tables and benches and a special observation tower which one can climb to get an unobstructed view of the peninsula. Fortunately for me, just below the observation tower, there was also a small little concession stand selling drinks and providing maps of other hikes around Miura, especially in Yokosuka City. During my roughly 70-minute walk to the summit, I had encountered only a handful of other Japanese. But finally, when I reached the observation area, there was a small crowd of roughly a dozen, relaxing, eating snacks and taking in the view.??

Looking down at other hikers from observation deck

Happy New Year!

2006-01-02T13:36:00.001+09:00

We spent the first day of the year 2006 in Washington DC. The highlight of the day was getting a tour of the Washington Monument, including an elevator ride to the top where we could look out over all of DC, Georgetown, and Northern Virginia.

At lunchtime, I got to see my all time best friend in life, Angel. Also got to see my best friend from high school, Cari, who gets along really well with Karen. Cari came to meet Mom, Dad, me and Karen afer lunch to go up to the top of the Washington Monument. I love this picture of Cari and Karen - such beautiful smiles!