M_E_G_R_O_G

International Manga Museum opend today in Kyoto.

Posted by masuyama at 07:17 | Permalink

In October, I was interviewed by Marie, a staff writer of Asahi Shimbun, one of major national newspaper in Japan. At first, she helped me with editing my speech for "Nordic Games" conference held in Sweden in September. We knew only our face each other because we go to the same Yoga studio in Meguro called "Sun and Moon". When I was looking for someone to help, Leza, the owner of Sun and Moon introduced me Marie. Thank you Marie, and Leza.

Posted by masuyama at 18:23 | Permalink

When you are in Japan, you will notice so called "food samples" at many restaurants. They are usually made of wax and some of them are extremely well done. Sometimes they look much better than real foods because of their gloss and bright colors.

I think a lot of travelers coming to Japan who doesn't know much about Japanese food would appreciate this custom. You know what it looks like after it is cooked, at least.

These are the pictures I shot 3 years ago in a Soba(buckwheat noodle) restaurant. One of them is the picture printed on the menu and another one is actual noodle I had. Can you tell which is which?

Posted by masuyama at 18:04 | Permalink | Comments (1)

I started putting up my texts and essays in English which was published in a book form, as many as possible on this site. The first one is taken from the catalogue of an media art exhibition I curated in 2000 for several museums in Japan. I named that series of exhibition "Bit Generation".

You can find it on June, 15, 2000 archive which was the day the catalogue was published. All of them were translated from my original Japanese texts.

Posted by masuyama at 17:35 | Permalink

I FINALLY started writing my blog in English. Hello, world!

This is a package of sweets (Manju, in Japanese. In my J-E dictionary, "buns with a bean-jam filling") I found at Haneda airport the other day. (It's not Narita airport. Haneda is mainly used for domestic flights, much closer to central Tokyo than Narita.)

The guy popping out from an egg is the new prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. and these sweets are named "Shin-chan Manju". "Shin" is simply taken from his first name and "chan" is a suffix used to express endearment, mostly toward girls or little boys.

It reads "Beautiful country, Japan. Peaceful country, Japan. New PM was elected!! From Yamaguchi prefecture." and in the lower left-hand corner, you will probablly notice the face of G.W. Bush saying "Shin-chan, America mo yoroshiku-ne." I think this "yoroshiku" is quite an essential word when you communicate in Japanese. It is similar to "nice to meet you", however, you can use that word on various occasions, such as "Send my regards", "Please work on this", or even, "Please be a little more tolerant". In this context, here on the package, I would say it means, "You'll continue to be friendly with the U.S., won't you?"

I didn't dare buy one, so I really don't know what it tastes like though....

//The text above was edited/corrected by my English sensei(teacher) PT-san. I put my original writing below for my personal reference. And it may be useful for people learning to write blogs in English.//

This is a package of sweets (Manju, in Japanese. In my J-E dictionary, "buns with a bean-jam filling") I found at Haneda airport the other day. (It's not Narita airport. Haneda is mainly used for domestic flights. Much closer to central Tokyo than Narita.)

The guy popping out from an egg is Japanese new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. And these sweets named "Shin-chan Manju". "Shin" is simply taken from his first name and "chan" is a suffix used to express endearment, mostly toward girls or little boys.

It reads "Beautiful County, Japan Peaceful country, Japan. New PM was elected!! From Yamaguchi prefecture." and down left, you will probably notice the face of G.W. Bush saying "Shin-chan, America mo yoroshiku-ne." I think this "yoroshiku" is quite essential word when you communicate in Japanese. It is similar to "nice to meet you", however, you can use that word in various occasion. Such as "Send my regards", "Please work on this", of even "Please be little more tolerant with this".
In this context here on a package, I would say it means, "You would be friendly with U.S., right?"

I didn't dare to buy one, so I really don't know what it tastes like though.....

Posted by masuyama at 14:43 | Permalink