Changed Impressions

I was looking out the window of the 3rd floor of my classroom building and realized I will miss this place when I leave next week. So I took this photo to remember the scenary and I began to reflect of my experience in Hirakata, Osaka, Japan....

 Alot of my initial impressions have changed since I came here. The impression that has changed the most is that of Japanese women. And that is also what I will miss the most about Japan (in a friendly way....... for the most part) - Before I came here, I had the impression that Japanese women are overly passive, too obidient to rules, and therefore perhaps not much fun to be a plutonic friend with. - After spending time here, that impression has changed dramatically. I met many cool chicks that came to beer park at the strangest hours just to meet me for a beer or two.... I met many chicks that I could share secrets with and vice versa! I will certainly miss my friends here, which turned out to be mostly female (given the gender inbalance at Kansai Gaidai) soooo,... I decided to use my final blog to post some pictures of some cool chicks, that I took.

she lives in cie hallway with her friends. i wonder how much they are paying for rent.... anyway she is always down for beerpark so shes cool in my book!

She always had my back when I needed a cigarette - shes even prettier without the mask - probably the most american japanese girl i know, this chick

She knows more curse words than me!! her favorite phrase: "Bitch PLEASE! Cuz I CAN!"

 

When I return to America, I plan to participate more in helping foreign students at my home university, similar to the many Nihonjin that helped me! (not just females; the guys are great too!)

The impression most strongly changed about Japanese folks is my new awareness of the extent of their kindness! I lost my wallet a few months ago. An older Japanese fellow managed to find it on the street and turned it into the police station with all the money still in there. I was surprised to say the least. I want to become more like this in America as well!!

Hair today, gone tomorrow

I have been in Japan for over 3 months now. I have less than 3 weeks until I return to America. Its pretty sad. Mainly because I have seen so many cool things that I will never see again.... Okonomiyaki parties, salary men on pink bicycles, and ofcourse purikura,.... among many other things. One thing I also appreciated here was fashion. While many people focus on clothing, I have also been interested in hair as well. So I took a couple of pictures of hair I have seen here. One is a photo of a Japanese student's hair with a cool blue path in it..... very liberal of him..... The second photo is of a foreigner student from Australia, who's hair style was inspired by Japanese fashion..... Both are very cool. And it reminds me of how terrible it is that I am going bald. The best thing I can do, is purchase really fashionable hats.....  pity...

You cant see, but on the other side of his head, his hair is red!!

This is just a cool haircut....... There is no denying.
Besides cool hair, I have seen people wearing glasses with no lens, and tons of colored contacts, among many other things solely in the name of fashion. This is very unique to me and I will miss it when I am gone. Just as much,.... I miss my own hair :(  --- peace.

Kamaoka, Japan

Here you will see a rural town in Japan.... yes they exist!!! The town of Kamaoka is huge in terms of space and probable also in cow population, but fails to match most Japanese City's human population. Myself and my Oklahoma friends from OSU went together as guests, as our school is Stillwater Oklahoma,.... and Kameoka and Stillwater have a "sister city" alliance! We ate free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We also received free overnight lodging, met cool people, and played some games during the trip. It was very fun. The most surprising part for me was to see rural life in Japan. I honestly didn't believe it existed before going to Kamaoka!! ---- Furthermore, the following photo was taken by me as this is no ordinary building. It is actually a replica of the 1st classroom building ever built at Oklahoma State University, "Old Central"... However, this photo was taken in Japan!!!!                            Here, below, you can see the original, which still exists in Oklahoma. I used to see this building often, before coming abroad. The photo was retrieved from the website http://www.lasr.net/travel/city.php?Oklahoma+Museum+of+Higher+Education&City_ID=OK0410027&VA=Y&Attraction_ID=OK0410027a006
 Below you can see an example of the vast grassland that I saw. Nice!!
This final photo was taken inside the guest house that my friends and I slept in. It was huge! And the food was great! I would love to return sometime in the future and I highly recomend people abroad travel not just to tourist attractions, such as Tokyo and Hiroshima, but also to places like this. You can get a good idea of unique culture this way and plus not many folks have seen foreigners in places like that so its fun for them too sometimes.

Only in Japan

For my improv blog, I feel I have to post about what entertains me the most; things I found only in Japan. From Purikura to whale-4-sale, you wont find some things elsewhere in the world.  Also worth mention and supported by photo is an example of the infamous "engrish t-shirts" that many folks notice in Japan. (these are shirts that somehow are printed and sold at real stores, yet make no logical sense when reading...... I provided a copy of my favorite example) - The purikura photo was not shot by me and involves me.... However, I give full credit to the machine that carefully shot the photo at Sega World-Game Center in Hirakata, Osaka, Japan. --- Notice the wonderful background of checkers,... this is something that many Americans would pick on, but I must say I dont care. I am totally addicted to it. I am a purikura warrior. In fact, I have my phone covered to the point where my phone's battery is the next target for a purikura sticker!!   Which reminds me,.. I  recently heard that some girls here like to hide a 'secret purikura' inside their phone, by the battery,... perhaps a photo of them with a boyfriend or such..... I tested this theory out on a girl I hardly know..... while looking at her 'public display' purikura on her phone,.. i asked her if she had 'secret' purikura,.... and simaltaneously jogged off with her phone while she yelled at me, so i could check inside... sure enough, there was "secret purikura" of what I can only guess is her and a boyfriend of the past or present. .... No one was hurt in this study..... ---

The other photos consist of "engrish" and whale... in the former... you can notice a man wearing a shirt the says "peace your *cow* take"    - by all means, please try to make sense of it for me, because I cant. This is a common trend in Japanese shirts I've seen and I love Japan because of it...... Finally.... I ate whale here!!!! It was one of my goals before coming here, as this is the only place I knew I would ever find it.....I must say, OISHIKATTA!

Annie and James

One common job; taking pictures, yet two very opposing routes are walked by the couple of photographers reviewed in my visual anthropology class. First was Annie Leibovitz. The following photo is one she is recently famous for shooting. This photo was pulled from the website http://arts.guardian.co.uk/graphic/0,,2276937,00.html - however it has been cited on there to have ultimately come from Vanity Fair Magazine.

 This is Miley Cyrus, whom at the time of this photo, was under the American government's determined age of "adulthood", therefore this lusty picture fast became controversial, much like many former works by the oddball lady. This is one of the best examples I could find. Annie had a reputation for controversial pictures. She often worked with well known celebrities and often shot for well known magazines. For example, as I saw in a documentary about her, she toured with the Rolling Stones. As stated in the film, she met with drug use during the trip. She is certainly a unique yet very talented and serious photographer.


       James, on the other hand, dealt with what people DON'T often like to observe. Yet similarly, his work was controversial, but in its own way. Rather than sexuality, his extreme was violence, or perhaps death. ... In the underlying photo, you can see photo of a Kosovo refugee, taken by James Natchtwey. I pulled this off the website http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20050314JJ.shtml but it was cited to have ultimately come from Time Magazine.

Kosovo refugee by James Nachtwey. Photo from Life Magazine.

Judging from this and other works I have seen, James easily can be perceived as cold; someone who is unphasable enough to consistantly work around things this horrific. However, upon watching a video documentary about him in my visual anthropology class, I quickly realized he has a concern for the victims he shoots; in such that he daringly tried to saved one from being beaten to death by a large crowd. I assume his works have the potential to open the eyes of many to how terrible war can be. Perhaps this "dark" job could lead to light.
     Either way you go with photography; Lustable celebrities, or mofo's dying, or anything inbetween,.. I reckon it is best to make it your life, because, based on what I learned from the documentaries I have watched, there is alot that can be missed if you don't stay on top of it.

Cool Dudes in Japan

I decided to write this week about a man named Shunsuke.... or rather as most know him, "Shun".... Upon my first 4 or 5 or so meetings with him, I butchered his name, as I do with every Japanese person's. So he described the sound to me in a way I could remember...... He described it as the sound of a light-saber swinging through the air..... Somehow; I remembered this....

He is one of my more chilled out friends; very cool, calm, & collected. I shared these pictures to share with viewers the situations I most often find him in..... smoking by CIE and chilling with friends at "BeerPark"!
When I think of these two places, he often comes to mind. He is a funny guy, has a girlfriend, studies English, lives in Hirakata, and is fairly popular. His English is great so I doubt he will find any trouble in job hunting or internationally socializing.

I chose to portrait Shun because not only is he a good buddy, he is also a fashionable guy like many others from Japan and can give insight on some varieties of Japanese fashion. In one picture you can spot him sporting a Boston shirt (where I am from!! reppin'!) in the latter, he is seen with another friend of ours, Seungje, 1 of quite a few great Korean students at Kansai Gaidai.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

My Front Yard :)

I used to have an awesome and huge graveyard in my backyard growing up. It was great for walks, shortcuts, and drinking with friends...... It has now been 1-upped, however, by my new front yard; Beer Park!! I live Hirakata at the moment; more specifically, Seminar House 4, where an outdoor party is only a 2 minute walk away. Thanks to the beer vending machine and the generous lack of public drinking laws in Japan, I think not of Beer Park so much as my front yard as I do my second home!! Here you can see a couple of pictures where locals and gaijin alike gather for their fix. It is not uncommon, infact, to see business men stopping at the vending machine at late hours via bicycle to grab a brew on the go. These particular photos were taken before the night really picked up. In one shot a girl was evaluating the selection. The other photo portrays a friend of mine, posing with a Japanese student we recently met, sitting on a very nice bike. I am jealous, looking at his bike.... knowing I can only return to my old fashioned bicycle when I need to transport. However, after spending countless yen here in Japan, I can feel nothing but positive emotions when I enter Beer Park, as it is cheap, convieniently close to home, and filled with friendly folks that are entertaining enough to keep me from doing expensive travel and kaimono (shopping) anymore... Hail Beer Park!!