Tokyo Art Book Fair, 2015

The Tokyo Art Book fair was one of the most stunning gatherings of creativity I’ve experienced in one place since coming to Japan. Although I love living in the countryside, it’s the masses of creativity that can be experienced in the city that I miss, so I was determined to visit. I set off early in the morning on the three hour train to Tokyo, ready to read.

The fair was being held at Tohoku University of Art and Design (Gaien Campus), on three beautifully sunny days. The campus was easy to find, just a few minutes’ walk from the station. I visited on the final day, a Monday, 21^st of September. Apparently, the first two days had been quite packed, so I was glad to be there early Monday to avoid the crowds. There were still a lot of people around, so my giant hiking bag was a little distracting, but I later managed to put it behind a table and wander around more freely. The fair started out in the courtyard with a selection of delicious looking food (and each stall with some cookbooks or trinkets that matched the culinary theme) and led into a corridor, with a number of rooms to choose from.

The ground floor held one large “international” room, with vendors selling photobooks from all over the world, whereas the smaller rooms were dedicated to less well-known exhibitors, some tended to by the photographers themselves. It was great to see some zines and university students displaying their wares, and I was impressed by the sheer talent and creativity crammed into one building.

The upper floor held even more stalls, separated into smaller rooms, and one larger area dedicated to printing. The printing room – oh the printing room! There were reams of paper, from stacks of B5 to paper that could have served as a small bed, carefully piled on wooden pallets. It was stationery heaven. Although I resisted buying any books for myself (buying a single one would have unleashed a floodgate), I did pick up a rather interesting notebook. Rather than paper, it’s a few whiteboard pages spiral-bound together. It came with a thin whiteboard marker and eraser, and seemed rather useful for classes, so I parted with ¥2,000 yen for it – rather pricey for a normal notebook, but not that bad when you consider that it’s good just about forever! When I took it home and opened it up, I noticed four squares on each page, one on each corner – very much like what you see for QR codes. Following that line of thought, I did a brief internet search on the brand and figured out that there was an accompanying application that allowed me to scan and upload any notes I wanted to save onto my phone! Very handy. I could easily just snap a photograph, of course, but the app cleans up the note a little and organizes it a bit better. I think it’s a bit like Evernote.

 I couldn’t resist buying a bunch of poetry postcards either. As I browsed through the rooms (I genuinely went through each one at least thrice, finding new things to catch my eye each time), I was hearing a mix of both Japanese and English, but a particular accent caught my ear as I walked by a table. It was Singlish, so I stopped to have a chat and look through what they had to offer. I have an especial soft spot for anything from Malaysia and Singapore, so I may have just… bought the entire set. Um. Moving on. Sarah and Schooling were the company present at the school, and I discovered an excellent Singaporean poet, Joshua Ip, whose poetry was embossed on the cards. I tried to purchase a book online, but it seems they’re all sold out.

Spoils of Singapore

I also found an old friend working the stalls at Shashasha, a photography gallery based in Shibuya. They showcase Japanese and Asian photographers, and even offer an app to view the photographers they publish! It’s pretty forward thinking, and they had a good range of books. I was fascinated by the dreamy black and white photos by Kiyoshi Suzuki

Kiyoshi Suzuki, Aus Mind Games, 1982

 Kiyoshi Suzuki, The town of circus tent 1983

Another of my friends is doing an internship with a German publisher, Kehrer. I’m so glad he found me (I drifted past the stall before he spotted me and called me back), because I discovered a new photographer who I’ve become slightly obsessed with – Vee Speers. Her style is very light and exposed; simple backgrounds, focusing on a single subject in a photo. The book I saw, Bulletproof, was a 6 year project in the making. Speers took photos of children in dress-up, posed, masked, uncertain, young. Then, years later, she returned to do the same, but showing their growth and change, adding strange, fighting props to signify how they have to adapt to the world around them. Some might call it pretentious and unoriginal, but I felt she really captured the atmosphere and vulnerability of the current generation. The fairy-tale vibe works well with their bizarre costumes.

Vee Speers, Bulletproof

The Tokyo Art Book fair is an annual event, and one well worth visiting. Keep your calendars free in 2016 mid-September, and go have a look at the mad stacks of creativity for yourself! I felt pretty inspired by the whole thing and went out for a photowalk with a friend the following weekend. But that is another post for another day.

~x.jaz.x.~

Keepin movin', always groovin'

Decked out like a hipster, taking snazzy photos

So, my weekend was pretty dope. Hangin’ with an LA homie means that everything I write today’s gotta be read with a Valley Girl accent. I joke; my accent is as British as it ever was, or, as the Americans say “limey”. I honestly didn’t think people said things like that anymore.

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So to recap my weekend: on Friday, I left school a mere half hour after my official work hours, which is nothing short of a small miracle. There’s always plenty of work waiting for me, I learned this the fun way… after marking 300 essays, I politely asked around the staffroom to see if I could help any Well, it turns out I certainly could, and had to make a worksheet to prove it. Serves me right. Not that I mind doing it, but my free time in school goes towards Japanese language study and the past two weeks have been totally neglected because of the essay marking.

A shrine I'll never find again, off a road I can't remember

Zen

Anyhow, I set off to Numazu, the biggest city in the area, on the Eastern part of the Shizuokan prefecture. It’s about half an hour by train if you manage to get all the connections right, with one stop in the middle. It takes a little longer by bus, but the route is terrifically scenic, so it’s worth taking once or twice, or of course if you want to get somewhere in between. It follows the coastal line, so it’s always lovely.

I met with Bong at the station, stomach ready for the challenge. Peruvian food at Mi Peru, a lovely little place just a ten minute walk from the station. I’ve never eaten Peruvian food before, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure whether it’d be any good. I’m still at the stage where I’m perfectly happy to eat Japanese food day in, day out, and from previous experiences in SEAsia, I find that cheap Western food tends to be pretty bland and uninteresting. You have to pay through the nose for the good stuff, and I’m so smitten with Japanese cuisine that I simply just don’t think about other foods very often. However, the food here was the bomb. Bong ordered a whole bunch of stuff – I just ate whatever was put in front of me with impunity.

The beef hearts were delicious. Bong wasn’t going to tell me what they were until after I’d tasted them as he didn’t know what an offal person (or should that be awful?) I am, but I picked out that distinctly organ taste straight away. It was marinated in a really delicious sauce that had penetrated all the way through the meat, and cooked perfectly – no bouncy rubbery heart for me!

So nice, I had it twice

That wasn’t all we ate that evening. We also headed over to a Chinese place; Xiong Xiong (which aptly translates into panda), had peking duck, some gyoza and veg. It was pretty standard; the Mi Peru was awesome, though. The local flavor of people was more interesting – there were a few heavily tattooed guys sitting next to us, who, as it turned out, were Bong’s friends. I was trying to catch local dialects and casual talk, as well as pick up on the waitress’ Mandarin!

We also walked through a local festival, meeting We headed over towards the river, and bumped into some sort of casual festival just in front of the bridge. There were a few ALTs around that Bong knew, so I met more fellow foreigners and chatted a little. The pool of English speakers in this area is pretty active, so everyone knows everyone, and I haven’t met anyone who I don’t like yet, believe it or not!

The night ended with a Game of Thrones/Firefly marathon, and good conversation until about three am. This sounds fun until you hear about the plans we’d made for Saturday. A morning run. Setting off about 6 am if we could. Well – as you can imagine, that didn’t happen, oh no. We went at seven, instead. I’m not even joking. We went for a 10k walk/run in the morning before the sun came out too strong. Bong has this Zombie run app on his phone, which is ridiculously fun. It talks you, a runner for your commune, through zombie infested areas, so you speed up and slow down as it narrates an excellent storyline.

One of my JTEs (my coworkers – Japanese Teachers of English) had told me about a local arts and crafts fair in Gotemba, about half an hour from Numazu, so after the run, we refreshed outselves and headed out that way. We met up with Shihyeng, a local Singaporean ALT who I’ve been in contact with for a while, but hadn’t yet had the chance to meet. She’s lovely, though. Unfortunately she had to head off pretty quickly,

The live music was amazing – I really liked this guitar-playing duo because they had wonderful harmonics. I purchased their CD even though I don’t have a CD player; but I’ll find a way to listen to it somehow. Later on there was a really hippie group who were playing washboards and a double bass, with a toddler on a tiny taiko drum. Their music was bizarre, but Bong loved it so we’re going to have to burn and exchange the music.

I recently misplaced (I won’t say lost, because I still hope it’s going to turn up again) a necklace very dear to me; and it was the only piece of neckwear I bought with me. There were a number of gorgeous necklaces at the arts and crafts fair, but one suited me in particular – a pendant shaped like a stack of books; wood wrapped in leather. It doesn’t replace my other necklace, but it suits me well.

After that, we headed to a nomihoudai and beer festival about half an hour away. Again, more ALTs (where there is beer, there are Caucasians) and friends made. Stomachs filled. Oh, boy, was my stomach ever filled. For ¥3,500, which is about 25 quid, it had better be filling, to be honest. It was much better than standard buffet fair, though of course you’d get better quality food in specialized restaurants where you order to your liking.

Round One

Round Two

After eating, drinking and travelling well, my Sunday was rather chilled. Although I had originally planned to go to Shimada to visit the festival, both the weather and my wallet conspired against me. There’s a typhoon somewhere, which means intermittent but heavy rains. Even the Shinkansen, the bullet train, was delayed because of landslides; that’s how bad the weather was. So, I stayed home, took two naps, read a bit, and cleaned the house, mostly by imagining that it was clean, to be honest.

Ashley, my sempai down in Shuzenji, did something similar, and contacted me last minute to go for some food in Mishima. I jumped in, and we headed up towards the city. Unfortunately, the place she had planned to take me to was closed! I suggested Mi Peru instead, because she wanted something along that type of cuisine, and I didn’t mind eating there again. Because, you know, I’m a glutton for punishment. I had the beef heart. Again. It was just as good. We met up with sempais Bong and Tiffany afterwards for a drink at a local bar, which also happens to be a hairdresser. The bartender cuts hair during the day, and pours drinks by night. Only in Japan.

Come Monday, the national holiday, I slept uneasily, the typhoon winds whistling around my house. It seemed like we were going to be in for a rough day. Even so, I didn’t want to spend my national holiday sitting in the house, so I donned a pair of wellies that my predecessor had left behind (and ft me perfectly), and headed towards Mishima to find Kawashima coffee, a shop that had been recommended by previous ALTs in the area. It was worth it. I got there about half an hour before the shop opened, but it was magic when we got inside. The gentleman running the shop was lovely, and I got myself some great coffee swag. He gave us free marshmallows! I’ll be back biweekly, I think, just to pick up some new coffees and sip on some new brews. My addiction has been rekindled.

I don’t like cooking by myself, but I love cooking with friends and family. So, Bong and I dropped off at my local supa, picked up some groceries and cooked up a storm. It was amazing.

Observe.

A foot long fish, merely 990 yen!

Sashimi

Asparagus, mushrooms, shiritaki noodles

Garlic butter prawns

Kawashima coffee and petit fours

I rounded off the evening by trying darts for the first time up in Mishima Tamachi, at an awesome bar/club called Hustler 9. I met the proprietor, Kosaka-san, and the food there was amazing too. Have you ever tried kimchee squid? No? You’re missing out.

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On Bong’s recommendation, by which I mean, my blatant rifle through and robbery of his personal library, I’ve just read Yakuza Moon, by Shoko Tendo. It’s a rather straightforward autobiography of her rather troubled lifestyle, beginning with her birth into a yakuza household. It was an interesting read – nothing out of the ordinary, but a good hour to while away and learn about the consequences of a rebellious childhood, drug addiction and abusive relationships. Still, she’s obviously out of that vicious cycle now, happily, and makes a living as a writer. I wonder what it read like in the original Japanese.

That said, I’m going to get on with reading 1Q84. Murakami awaits me.

JET Placement News

A momentous day! I received my placement letter, informing me of the general region in which I will be placed in Japan.

SO, drumroll, please. Trumpets commence!

Dun dun dun, ba ba ba baaaaaaaaaaaa…