It's open studio at the gallery. There are dozens of rooms in the six floor building, and I am sitting on the white plastic chair behind the desk in her studio. She's gone to a conference, and I've volunteered to watch over her exhibition's small room. For two hours, almost nobody has appeared. Only one guy came into the room, looked around very quick, and vanished. That's all.
From my position, I cannot see anything but the 1333 x 2000mm print of her huge work "A Siesta of Marilyn." Even when I am looking at my computer screen, it's impossible not to see the bright scarlet colored futon in the bed from my desk. For more than two hours I've been looking at the picture.
At last I get up and stand with my arms akimbo in front of the photograph. My eyes are fixed on the scarlet futon again, but this time soon I inspect the room more carefully... For a minute, I've been enchanted and moved and perplexed by the power of my own imagination. It has driven me into the room, into the fantasy land -- romantic and savage. It gives me bad thoughts. It makes me think of a sacred promise broken. Short-stories of ephemeral love. Is it Mary Magdalene's room? Marilyn is the diminutive of Mary. Is she Mary Magdalene?
It is a room very small and old but cozy. There are stains everywhere, especially on the ceiling, but no spider webs, no dust. On the right side of the room there is a set of huge naked, nontransparent windows, and above them there is a simple wooden cross hanging on a blue wall. On the left hand side, there is a steel clothing rack covered with a piece of faded pink cloth, a mahogany colored wooden dresser and a cheap navy blue wardrobe. A rectangular heater sits under the window. On the dresser there are cosmetics, medicine, a box of Vitamin C, a couple of small toy dolls, a tin candy box, an old-fashioned black and red Bible, and around the dresser's mirror there are photos of children, portraits and a photo of a landscape with a camel in it. There is also a framed Jesus above the dresser. In the middle of the room, there is a big double-bed covered with a vivid scarlet colored blanket. The wallpaper is beige, washed-out as well, and the wall around the window is blue and the wallpaper is torn badly.
Even though, through the window, soft sunlight is brightening the room, its air is heavy and everything in the room is somewhat de-colorized, mono-toned and opaque, with the exception of the red bed. The dirty-yellow floor is clean. The room is neat. It looks so comfortable it makes one feel like a nap.
It looks more like a still-life painting than a photograph. Or it reminds me of Jan Vermeer's rooms in his paintings.
As she said, it could be not only an old woman's room, but also a prostitute's room or a teenager's room. In my eyes, it looks like a lover's hidden haven.
It is calm, exquisite, cute, comfortable, provocative, obscene, sacred, elegant, and religious.
It is beautiful.
++ At the Studio 603
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Friday 27 Feb 2009 w/ Kyoko : "Daeboo Island"
It takes 80 minutes by train from Seoul to Ansan. And from Ansan station we were going to get a bus to Daeboo island. The bus is only once an hour and Kyoko and I couldn't be late for the appointment with Jieun (who is an assistant of Ssamzie Space) at Ansan station. But things, of cause, don't goes so well in the real life.
I was in the middle of the worst hangover and headache in my life. I had to travel to Ansan station in a really bad shape -- I lay down on the chair in the train; I wasn't even able to sit down on the chair. I troubled with nausea too. So I took medicine in front of the bus stop and then, at the bus stop, I was holding a bottle of water in my right hand and just being a vegetable. Kyoko told me I should go back to Hongdae if I feel so sick and Jieun agreed and worried. Frankly I couldn't get the train back to Hongdae right then because Hongdae was too far and I was sure that it might make me sick. I had no energy. So I said "No" and got the bus to Daeboo Island with them anyway. I was listening to "Born to run" sang by Bruce Springsteen in the bus over and over and crying all along. My hangover somehow made me very emotional. But, miraculously, Bruce CURED me!
We were slightly late but not too much and we were able to contact a woman from the Ansan City Community Center. We headed together for the first place without any trouble. On foot, it took only 5 minutes from the bus stop.
When we opened the sliding door of the living room I smelled something weird. However, as we got into the bedroom, that smell disappeared. There we met two women. One is the house owner Madam Kang (91 years old) and the other was her friend Madam Lee (86 years old).
Kang was in the bed. And Lee was sitting next to her. But Kang got out of the futon right away and sat on the floor with us. Both of them have lived on that island for more than 40 years and they said they were close friends.
Despite that Kang looked totally healthy she wasn't able to walk any more. The house seemed very old and hopeless. There were cracks on the wall in places and spider web in the tiny bathroom. When Kyoko went to take pictures of the living room she saw a mouse running crossed the ceiling and captured it on her camera, which I learned later on the train back home. The weird smell in the living room must be it's excrement... Even so Kang was proud of her house very much. She said she was proud of it because a half of a century ago, she bought the land and built the house on her own. She said the same thing to us at least 4 times!
Near the ceiling high on the wall there were two framed portrait pictures. One portrait was very good-looking young man and next to it was about sixty years old Madam Kang herself. She told us that the young guy is her deceased husband who passed away when he was 25 years old during the war, and to whom she got married when she was only 16 years old. Therefore she had to raise three children alone. She became a peddler carrying her wares on her back from one hamlet to another, buying and selling used/new clothes and household utensils. No wonder why that house was so precious to her, one can imagine. She said again and again this that "I don't get it how come I have lived so long. I get sick of it. I wish I could die." And soon after we learned that her son and daughter were already dead and only one daughter is still alive, and she is 72 years old. And now her niece takes care of her who lives near by.
Still she is the lucky one, I think. She has a close friend who drop by every day and cares for her a lot. Compared to people as old as her who live in a metropolis like Seoul the life in the island is much slower and peaceful. The village people take care of each other.
I respect her tough life and hope when it ends it ends peacefully.
After visiting Kang's place, we had lunch nearby and afterwards we were waiting for a phone call from Miss. Song (of the Ansan City Community Center) at a Nonghyeop [agricultural cooperative] Market, and buying small things for our next visit. Right after we paid for a bag of tangerines, we got the phone call and learned that we couldn't visit the next woman. She was in a bad condition out of the blue and her son didn't want us to come.
All of a sudden we didn't know what to do. We came all the way to the island and had visited one place and nothing else?
I was so disappointed by that news but Kyoko cheerfully said "Oh well, let's go out and walk around! It's a good sunny day!"
On the street Jieun bought a bag of popped rice from an middle aged woman (I wonder if she will live to be 91?) and we rambled about aimlessly.
We came upon a halmeoni [old woman] in front of her door and asked if we could take pictures of her house. She looked at us suspiciously and said "No" coldly. Then I sticked out some tangerines to her. But she said "No, no. I ain't needing anything" and shut the door tightly.
Finally Jieun said "Let's check the bus timetable at least. There is a police station." We agreed and went into the police station. They consulted for a while and told us they didn't know the actual time, but right before we came they said a bus passed, so we probably should wait for an hour or something. And they offered us instant coffee. They were very kind.
The police chief asked us where were we from and why we came. So without any real expectation I asked him, at Kyoko's suggestion, if he could introduce us to people over 80 years old around there. He checked our Resident Registration Numbers first and the aim of our activity, and then immediately he printed out from a computer a list of 40 people in the island. And he said "We police are very helpful for the people's needs, don't you think?" and laughed. They were truly helpful, so much so, one of them even drove us to a place by his patrol car and introduced us to a small village headman.
The village headman and we went into a house. The house had an old fashioned wood door and two meters dark hallway beyond. The inner court was surrounded by many rooms. The house was composed by three small apartments which each had a few rooms but shared a bathroom. And one person lived in each of them.
A guy appeared. The village headman asked him "May she take picture of your room? She is a photographer who takes picture of old people's rooms," and he opened the small door next to the hallway. It was a kitchen and there was a sliding door for a room. It wasn't locked. He opened it too without any hesitation. What surprised me the most was that it wasn't the guy's room. And later I learned that the guy was just the landlord. He and the village headman gave Kyoko their permission to take pictures of her room. They kept telling us "Feel free! It's OK, totally OK." The guy soon disappeared.
The village headman was still with us and Jieun and I chitchatted with him, standing in the court yard, while Kyoko was doing her work. He was nice. He told us about his life on the island and living in a countryside. He said he likes it. And he went on about their vineyards, and the island's vine festival. Also, apropos of nothing, he told us about how fake-medicine businessmen come to the village and deceive old people there. He said "At the moment, today, the fake-medicine businessmen is in the village and the room owner, an 82 years old woman, is surely there. All the old people must be. That's why there are no people on the street." But a young man like him (he was in his early 50s, I guess) was not even allowed to get into the place where they were selling the terrible fake-medicine. I asked "Why don't you stop them and protect those old people?" He answered "It isn't illegal."
With the policemen and the village headman's help, we luckily could visit and take pictures of two more places. It turned out just like the saying "転禍為福 A misfortune turns into a blessing" by end of the day.
I was in the middle of the worst hangover and headache in my life. I had to travel to Ansan station in a really bad shape -- I lay down on the chair in the train; I wasn't even able to sit down on the chair. I troubled with nausea too. So I took medicine in front of the bus stop and then, at the bus stop, I was holding a bottle of water in my right hand and just being a vegetable. Kyoko told me I should go back to Hongdae if I feel so sick and Jieun agreed and worried. Frankly I couldn't get the train back to Hongdae right then because Hongdae was too far and I was sure that it might make me sick. I had no energy. So I said "No" and got the bus to Daeboo Island with them anyway. I was listening to "Born to run" sang by Bruce Springsteen in the bus over and over and crying all along. My hangover somehow made me very emotional. But, miraculously, Bruce CURED me!
We were slightly late but not too much and we were able to contact a woman from the Ansan City Community Center. We headed together for the first place without any trouble. On foot, it took only 5 minutes from the bus stop.
When we opened the sliding door of the living room I smelled something weird. However, as we got into the bedroom, that smell disappeared. There we met two women. One is the house owner Madam Kang (91 years old) and the other was her friend Madam Lee (86 years old).
Kang was in the bed. And Lee was sitting next to her. But Kang got out of the futon right away and sat on the floor with us. Both of them have lived on that island for more than 40 years and they said they were close friends.
Despite that Kang looked totally healthy she wasn't able to walk any more. The house seemed very old and hopeless. There were cracks on the wall in places and spider web in the tiny bathroom. When Kyoko went to take pictures of the living room she saw a mouse running crossed the ceiling and captured it on her camera, which I learned later on the train back home. The weird smell in the living room must be it's excrement... Even so Kang was proud of her house very much. She said she was proud of it because a half of a century ago, she bought the land and built the house on her own. She said the same thing to us at least 4 times!
Near the ceiling high on the wall there were two framed portrait pictures. One portrait was very good-looking young man and next to it was about sixty years old Madam Kang herself. She told us that the young guy is her deceased husband who passed away when he was 25 years old during the war, and to whom she got married when she was only 16 years old. Therefore she had to raise three children alone. She became a peddler carrying her wares on her back from one hamlet to another, buying and selling used/new clothes and household utensils. No wonder why that house was so precious to her, one can imagine. She said again and again this that "I don't get it how come I have lived so long. I get sick of it. I wish I could die." And soon after we learned that her son and daughter were already dead and only one daughter is still alive, and she is 72 years old. And now her niece takes care of her who lives near by.
Still she is the lucky one, I think. She has a close friend who drop by every day and cares for her a lot. Compared to people as old as her who live in a metropolis like Seoul the life in the island is much slower and peaceful. The village people take care of each other.
I respect her tough life and hope when it ends it ends peacefully.
After visiting Kang's place, we had lunch nearby and afterwards we were waiting for a phone call from Miss. Song (of the Ansan City Community Center) at a Nonghyeop [agricultural cooperative] Market, and buying small things for our next visit. Right after we paid for a bag of tangerines, we got the phone call and learned that we couldn't visit the next woman. She was in a bad condition out of the blue and her son didn't want us to come.
All of a sudden we didn't know what to do. We came all the way to the island and had visited one place and nothing else?
I was so disappointed by that news but Kyoko cheerfully said "Oh well, let's go out and walk around! It's a good sunny day!"
On the street Jieun bought a bag of popped rice from an middle aged woman (I wonder if she will live to be 91?) and we rambled about aimlessly.
We came upon a halmeoni [old woman] in front of her door and asked if we could take pictures of her house. She looked at us suspiciously and said "No" coldly. Then I sticked out some tangerines to her. But she said "No, no. I ain't needing anything" and shut the door tightly.
Finally Jieun said "Let's check the bus timetable at least. There is a police station." We agreed and went into the police station. They consulted for a while and told us they didn't know the actual time, but right before we came they said a bus passed, so we probably should wait for an hour or something. And they offered us instant coffee. They were very kind.
The police chief asked us where were we from and why we came. So without any real expectation I asked him, at Kyoko's suggestion, if he could introduce us to people over 80 years old around there. He checked our Resident Registration Numbers first and the aim of our activity, and then immediately he printed out from a computer a list of 40 people in the island. And he said "We police are very helpful for the people's needs, don't you think?" and laughed. They were truly helpful, so much so, one of them even drove us to a place by his patrol car and introduced us to a small village headman.
The village headman and we went into a house. The house had an old fashioned wood door and two meters dark hallway beyond. The inner court was surrounded by many rooms. The house was composed by three small apartments which each had a few rooms but shared a bathroom. And one person lived in each of them.
A guy appeared. The village headman asked him "May she take picture of your room? She is a photographer who takes picture of old people's rooms," and he opened the small door next to the hallway. It was a kitchen and there was a sliding door for a room. It wasn't locked. He opened it too without any hesitation. What surprised me the most was that it wasn't the guy's room. And later I learned that the guy was just the landlord. He and the village headman gave Kyoko their permission to take pictures of her room. They kept telling us "Feel free! It's OK, totally OK." The guy soon disappeared.
The village headman was still with us and Jieun and I chitchatted with him, standing in the court yard, while Kyoko was doing her work. He was nice. He told us about his life on the island and living in a countryside. He said he likes it. And he went on about their vineyards, and the island's vine festival. Also, apropos of nothing, he told us about how fake-medicine businessmen come to the village and deceive old people there. He said "At the moment, today, the fake-medicine businessmen is in the village and the room owner, an 82 years old woman, is surely there. All the old people must be. That's why there are no people on the street." But a young man like him (he was in his early 50s, I guess) was not even allowed to get into the place where they were selling the terrible fake-medicine. I asked "Why don't you stop them and protect those old people?" He answered "It isn't illegal."
With the policemen and the village headman's help, we luckily could visit and take pictures of two more places. It turned out just like the saying "転禍為福 A misfortune turns into a blessing" by end of the day.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Friday 6 Feb 2009 w/Kyoko
A welfare office lady, Madam Han, introduced Kyoko and me to three places in Yumri-dong. And we visited one of them where three women (Madam Kim (85 years old), Park(78), Cho(75)) live together. The house was placed at a narrow alley, a four story red brick flat (a very common style flat in Korea) and they live on second floor. It is an old building but it has many windows. It has three bedrooms -- one room for each woman --, one quite big living-dining room, and one bathroom.
Beforehand, the day before we planed to visit, I called Madam Kim, one of the three women, to tell them that we were going there tomorrow, but she was harsh and yelled something unintelligible at me and hang up the phone immediately even though we had met together with Madam Han (of the welfare office) already. So Madam Han kindly rearranged the second meeting for us.
So I was anxious and thought "what if she is angry" as we rang the door bell. They opened the door and when I said "I'm the interpreter and she is Kyoko Ebata the Japanese photographer" they smiled and one lady gently said "Come in, please", and another said even in Japanese "Irassyai!" I was bewildered but frankly very relieved!
They prepared instant coffee (mixed instant coffee was elderly ladies' favorite coffee, I found!) and strawberries for us, and peeled an apple and a pear. We sat on the living room floor and had coffee together. We talked for a while about her project, but they were a bit shy and told us there was nothing worth of taking pictures of, but that we should feel free and do whatever we wanted to! Then Kyoko started to take pictures of the rooms. And I remained with them and kept listening to their stories.
Surprisingly all of them were born in North Korea near Pyogyang, and had all run off to South Korea for different reasons. Kim and Cho came to South Korea during the Korean Civil War and Park moved to China with her family during the Japanese occupation and much later moved to Korea. People as old as them who grew up in those days in Korea must have had a hard time because they had to go through two terrible wars while they were little children. In those days most Korean people were poor and hungry. So they said terrible things about the war and how far people could be cruel to other people. Park told me "I saw dead people's bodies hanging on the trees, people who had been killed by South Korean soldiers in the mountains." And Cho said "Yes, that was terrible! I also saw dead people a lot. Now I wonder which one was crueler North Koreans or South Koreans. They were both bad, inhuman, monstrous!" And Park said "Now a days I don't think of what happened during the war at all. It makes me deeply depressed," and she stopped talking.
But soon she began talking about her childhood and her life which perhaps was almost forgotten even to herself for ages of years. Her eyes looked a bit empty, seeing nothing or maybe seeing the memories of her whole life. Soon Park started to talk again. "It was when I was in China with my family. And the end of the war. It was sad. Poor Japanese, we liked them... They were dying of hunger, they were killed sometimes, and eventually they had to get back to Japan by that ship... In my neighborhood, there were lots of Japanese and they had such a hard time then, so miserable because of losing the war mostly... so sometimes we helped them. The Chinese wanted to kill some of them and a Japanese family was hidden in my house and they shared our food. But they finally left to Japan. They were just like family to us, just like my family." And she looked at Kyoko smiled and talked softly something like this in Japanese. "They were my family. I still miss them (Nihonjinwa kazoku mitai. Imademo kareraga nastukasii)."
I couldn't understand the situation well nor why she still likes Japanese people so much. When Korean people talk about the Japanese invasion and occupation, most Korean people hate what the Japanese did to Korea, to us, during that time. Park hated the war, but she experienced something different from most people in Korea. Was it because she was in China? She talked just so innocently, so sympathetically, not what I would have expected from a woman who survived war and occupation.
I just listened to them. I just let them talk more and more.
Eventually, I didn't much think about their meaning any more. Just they were so cute all together and I was happy to listen to them. My mind was wandering, wandering about my already-dead-grandma's old place in my childhood, in the countryside. It was comfortable.
We talked, laughed, sighed, laughed again, held our hands together, hugged, and said good-bye.
Beforehand, the day before we planed to visit, I called Madam Kim, one of the three women, to tell them that we were going there tomorrow, but she was harsh and yelled something unintelligible at me and hang up the phone immediately even though we had met together with Madam Han (of the welfare office) already. So Madam Han kindly rearranged the second meeting for us.
So I was anxious and thought "what if she is angry" as we rang the door bell. They opened the door and when I said "I'm the interpreter and she is Kyoko Ebata the Japanese photographer" they smiled and one lady gently said "Come in, please", and another said even in Japanese "Irassyai!" I was bewildered but frankly very relieved!
They prepared instant coffee (mixed instant coffee was elderly ladies' favorite coffee, I found!) and strawberries for us, and peeled an apple and a pear. We sat on the living room floor and had coffee together. We talked for a while about her project, but they were a bit shy and told us there was nothing worth of taking pictures of, but that we should feel free and do whatever we wanted to! Then Kyoko started to take pictures of the rooms. And I remained with them and kept listening to their stories.
Surprisingly all of them were born in North Korea near Pyogyang, and had all run off to South Korea for different reasons. Kim and Cho came to South Korea during the Korean Civil War and Park moved to China with her family during the Japanese occupation and much later moved to Korea. People as old as them who grew up in those days in Korea must have had a hard time because they had to go through two terrible wars while they were little children. In those days most Korean people were poor and hungry. So they said terrible things about the war and how far people could be cruel to other people. Park told me "I saw dead people's bodies hanging on the trees, people who had been killed by South Korean soldiers in the mountains." And Cho said "Yes, that was terrible! I also saw dead people a lot. Now I wonder which one was crueler North Koreans or South Koreans. They were both bad, inhuman, monstrous!" And Park said "Now a days I don't think of what happened during the war at all. It makes me deeply depressed," and she stopped talking.
But soon she began talking about her childhood and her life which perhaps was almost forgotten even to herself for ages of years. Her eyes looked a bit empty, seeing nothing or maybe seeing the memories of her whole life. Soon Park started to talk again. "It was when I was in China with my family. And the end of the war. It was sad. Poor Japanese, we liked them... They were dying of hunger, they were killed sometimes, and eventually they had to get back to Japan by that ship... In my neighborhood, there were lots of Japanese and they had such a hard time then, so miserable because of losing the war mostly... so sometimes we helped them. The Chinese wanted to kill some of them and a Japanese family was hidden in my house and they shared our food. But they finally left to Japan. They were just like family to us, just like my family." And she looked at Kyoko smiled and talked softly something like this in Japanese. "They were my family. I still miss them (Nihonjinwa kazoku mitai. Imademo kareraga nastukasii)."
I couldn't understand the situation well nor why she still likes Japanese people so much. When Korean people talk about the Japanese invasion and occupation, most Korean people hate what the Japanese did to Korea, to us, during that time. Park hated the war, but she experienced something different from most people in Korea. Was it because she was in China? She talked just so innocently, so sympathetically, not what I would have expected from a woman who survived war and occupation.
I just listened to them. I just let them talk more and more.
Eventually, I didn't much think about their meaning any more. Just they were so cute all together and I was happy to listen to them. My mind was wandering, wandering about my already-dead-grandma's old place in my childhood, in the countryside. It was comfortable.
We talked, laughed, sighed, laughed again, held our hands together, hugged, and said good-bye.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Monday 19 Jan 2009 w/Kyoko
Kyoko and I met kind of early in the morning, at about 9:30 (It's very early, at least, for me!) because we had to go my grand-ma's place to take picture of her rooms. Kyoko said that she had been to a couple of other places already. Jieun's grand-ma's place was one of them and the other I do not remember.
Anyways it was the first time I went to accompany Kyoko to an old person's place for Kyoko's work and I was excited but also nervous simultaneously. We planed to meet in front of my place. And she was already there as I went to down the stairs with her big smiles, which I like a lot.
At first we planed to go there by subway, but I changed my mind and forced her to get a taxi with me because she had a heavy camera bag and a huge tripod. (Well, nevertheless, soon after, I got accustomed to see her with those bags and we eventually took public transportation all the time, except when we went to Yumri-dong to where we went at least three times together. It's near our neighborhood but inconvenient to get a subway or bus, too far to walk, and it's almost same price as take a taxi there as subway fee).
My grand-ma lives at an apartment which is old but is in a nice neighborhood. When we arrived there she took a picture of the apartment complex. She did that probably because she thought the apartment was very old and it looked a bit gloomy. It's old after all! However she was surprised that the rooms were actually not bad at all and have wonderful view.
My mom and grand-ma welcomed her warmly and while she was setting her camera on tripod and taking pictures of the bedroom and other rooms, they prepared lunch for us.
My grand-ma has lived in that apartment room for more than 20 years all alone. And she is 88 years old. She is neat, active, organized and very independent woman. Even now, she goes to the gym every morning.
It seems to me Kyoko has been interested in bedrooms the most but for my grand-ma's place, she liked some exercise machines in the corner of a small room. She said they were cute. 'Funny!', I thought. But they were actually very cute. She has her own aesthetic sensibility and I loved it ever since I saw her art at her blog for the first time. And that's why I decided to be her assistant (and interpreter). It was fun to follow her and see what she was going to take pictures of.
While we were having lunch my grand-ma told us about her travel stories all over world : how she liked Hokkaido Yuki Matsuri (a snow festival), how awesome Africa was, etc. And she talked about her daughters and sons and so on. Kyoko never got bored and was smiling all along nodding her head every moment even if she couldn't understand most of what my grand-ma said (haha!). My grand-ma liked her very much, I could tell!
One small problem was we had to eat and eat and EAT! They forced it on us - so much food! So as we left my grand-ma's, we could barely straighten our backs and it was hard to breathe!
It was very cold outside but was a beautiful day. We enjoyed the sun on the way back.
Anyways it was the first time I went to accompany Kyoko to an old person's place for Kyoko's work and I was excited but also nervous simultaneously. We planed to meet in front of my place. And she was already there as I went to down the stairs with her big smiles, which I like a lot.
At first we planed to go there by subway, but I changed my mind and forced her to get a taxi with me because she had a heavy camera bag and a huge tripod. (Well, nevertheless, soon after, I got accustomed to see her with those bags and we eventually took public transportation all the time, except when we went to Yumri-dong to where we went at least three times together. It's near our neighborhood but inconvenient to get a subway or bus, too far to walk, and it's almost same price as take a taxi there as subway fee).
My grand-ma lives at an apartment which is old but is in a nice neighborhood. When we arrived there she took a picture of the apartment complex. She did that probably because she thought the apartment was very old and it looked a bit gloomy. It's old after all! However she was surprised that the rooms were actually not bad at all and have wonderful view.
My mom and grand-ma welcomed her warmly and while she was setting her camera on tripod and taking pictures of the bedroom and other rooms, they prepared lunch for us.
My grand-ma has lived in that apartment room for more than 20 years all alone. And she is 88 years old. She is neat, active, organized and very independent woman. Even now, she goes to the gym every morning.
It seems to me Kyoko has been interested in bedrooms the most but for my grand-ma's place, she liked some exercise machines in the corner of a small room. She said they were cute. 'Funny!', I thought. But they were actually very cute. She has her own aesthetic sensibility and I loved it ever since I saw her art at her blog for the first time. And that's why I decided to be her assistant (and interpreter). It was fun to follow her and see what she was going to take pictures of.
While we were having lunch my grand-ma told us about her travel stories all over world : how she liked Hokkaido Yuki Matsuri (a snow festival), how awesome Africa was, etc. And she talked about her daughters and sons and so on. Kyoko never got bored and was smiling all along nodding her head every moment even if she couldn't understand most of what my grand-ma said (haha!). My grand-ma liked her very much, I could tell!
One small problem was we had to eat and eat and EAT! They forced it on us - so much food! So as we left my grand-ma's, we could barely straighten our backs and it was hard to breathe!
It was very cold outside but was a beautiful day. We enjoyed the sun on the way back.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
obiit!
Kurt Vonnegut, one of my most-liked American writers, is dead.
He was 84.
-Vonnegut's rules for short stories
Here's some lovely advice on writing short stories, from Kurt Vonnegut's collection, Bagombo Snuff Box:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Copycatted via Boing Boing
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*this post is a small tribute to him
summa cum dolore.
vive quasi cras moriturus!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
MAGNOLIA, a flower of the other world.
When magnolia is just beginning to bloom
(by the way, this pic shows you of its full bloom),
I always feel like this one isn't belonging in this world...
I just see the world after death.
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