speach tree

The taxi driver told us that Toyota's recall scandal really demoralized workers in this area. Toyota is the leading job-provider in this prefecture although Nissan and I think Mazda are also headquartered here. I had heard from the neighbors that a lot of the factories use Brazilian immigrant labor which is why there are so many Braziltowns along the highway. There are also a lot of Brazilians around downtown. They have their own groceries and international call plans... I know that the government used to allow the ones who are part Japanese to stay and work, but I had also read that this was a scam to exploit workers. I read a novel about this by a Peruvian writer. He described subcontracting companies that would ship impoverished Japanese Latin-Americans (mostly Peruvian and Brazilian) into Japan with promises of quick money. When they finally realized what was going on they found themselves in company housing with a dozen people to a shower, poor hygiene, 80+ hour work-weeks, a...

Last night we stayed at the funeral home and kept my grandmother company all night for the last time. (We had to greet visitors from the neighborhood who wanted to pay respects. About 40 people came to the wake.) I got up at 4:00am as usual and went across the street to the convenience store. I had seen yakuza in Tokyo before on a few occasions, but this was the first time I've seen one in my grandmother's neighborhood. He was with his girlfriend and a chubby drag queen. There's not much to do around here and it looked like they had been out clubbing, maybe they were coming back from the city... Here are some pictures of the neighborhood in daylight: This is the playground where I hid from my mom whenever we got into a fight. There are a lot of rich farmers like this one around here. They opened up a cafe in their old storage building next to their fields. A lot of them pave over their fields and live on the monthly parking fees they charge other residents. This is the insi...

Every time I come here I am once again reminded how expensive it is to survive. See below for prices. This is breakfast. Granted at a fancy place, but 900Y is ridiculous. (~$11) What I had for breakfast in the food court was comparable and only about 630Y which is still not cheap. This tea pot alone was 630Y (I didn't pay for it) Just getting to the city from the airport was 800Y per person (we took the super-express and paid for reserved seating, which was unnecessary but this should give you an idea of how expensive it is. Compare to the metrofare in NYC to get from JFK to Manhattan: $2.25, which is bad enough...)

I've been a passenger for a large part of the past 2 days: After learning of my grandmother's death, SF drove me home from Chinatown to Queens (15min), then back to Chinatown (15min), where I got on a bus to DC (5hrs). My father picked me up in DC's Chinatown and drove me to VA (30min), where I spent the night. In the morning, my mother picked us up and drove us from VA back to DC (30min), where we caught a plane to Detroit (1hr), in order to catch a connecting flight to Nagoya (13hrs). It didn't end once we got off the plane of course. To get to my grandmother we had to get on a train to downtown Nagoya, 890Y (30min) and connect to the Higashiyama Line (subway) to my grandmother's stop 230Y, (10min). The riding continues, but for now I will explain the following images of Nagoya's Central Airport... Some toys at the convenience store Some unfathomable beauty enhancement product for women on display across from abovementioned toys at same convenience store Shop...

My おばあちゃん passed away today, February 21 at around 5am. She was alone, and they say that no one noticed her go.

After a quick meal, we continued... We used the stands to clamp down the studs that still needed cutting. Some Home Depots will do this for you but they were not very precise at the one we went to in Elmhurst.

We actually finished our table a couple of weeks ago, but I was waiting until we applied the finish to post the pictures. Doesn't look like I'll be doing that until spring, so I'll post the pictures one at a time and maybe by the time I'm done the finished product will be ready... Part 1: Home Depot Later we discovered that the HD in Flushing actually has a much better selection of wood and much better quality. At the time, though, we ended up buying a few studs. And so the table was destined to become a Stud Table...

A lot of people in my life are leaving. It’s not that I don’t understand why they are choosing to leave. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I have traveled the world to find answers, so of course I understand. But the thing is, I disagree. I don’t have a problem understanding A, who has bought a one-way ticket to Spain to learn organic gardening. When I was jobless after Brown, I thought about learning to grow my own vegetables in Japan. But when people asked me: for whom? I had to face the fact that I couldn’t eat all that stuff on my own. And moreover, that people have more important problems to solve right now, like confronting racism and fighting displacement. I found people who want to learn how to grow vegetables out of an apartment in NYC, and that was much more interesting in the final analysis. I don’t have a problem understanding B, who thinks she can build a movement over email, pin down exploitative bosses on the internet, and investigate community problems by lo...

Here is a video of last Wednesday's snowstorm. M was trapped inside her house in VA, apparently. DC seems to have been debilitated. She called me many times to pass the time. I on the other hand waded through the nyc snowbanks all the way to Chinatown... Nothing like hot noodles with good people on a bad snow day....