speach tree

Picking up again on the theme of sacrifice / ambition in March Comes in Like a Lion , escape/discipline is another theme that circulates throughout the series and closely mirrors the sacrifice theme. The main character's adoptive brother and sister failed to become high-level  shogi  players because of their lack of discipline. Instead they play video games and run away from home. Another main character, Hinata, becomes the target of bullies, lead by a girl named Takagi, who victimizes "losers" because she's afraid to work hard and test her own abilities. Some minor characters make fun of Shimada, the  shogi  player with stomach ulcers, taking cheap shots because they know they might never get to his level. These characters all provide the foil against which the main character and his friends' discipline and perseverance shine. All of this sounds trite when described in words here, but for some reason the illustration/animation make the story so dramatic and re...

7/24/18 Very quickly, while Ichiro is sleeping... I'm currently following Umino Chika's super-popular manga/anime 「 三月のライオン 」( March Comes In Like a Lion ) which has been such a huge hit despite some very heavy themes. During the first season, I was drawn to the main character's struggle with his status as both an orphan and a genius shogi player, who makes more money than his high school teacher as a professional player. This season though I am more interested in the work's theme of sacrifice. The show's more drab characters most clearly illustrate this theme. Particularly, Shimada Kai and Yanagihara Sakutaro. Kai is in his thirties and Sakutaro is in his sixties, and both have given up a lot to play shogi on their level. Kai has stomach ulcers, a failed relationship, early signs of aging. Sakutaro has many physical ailments, seems to be single, is the oldest active A-class player. As they square off, both have flashbacks to what they have lost in order t...

Amazing good stories out there, reminds me for the thousandth time the power of a good story. I wish I had read these stories earlier, when my friend was going through PPD and before I went into labor myself. I think I was trying too hard to only read and hear stories about easy childbirth and easy motherhood, so as not to "scare" myself. But in the end I went through a desperate labor, delivery, and 2 weeks of first-time-motherhood with no playbook and a sneaking suspicion that it would never get better. Everyone said the words I hated most: "It gets better," and every time I heard that I would hear a voice in my head say, "Only if you survive that long." But here I am on the other side of those promises, just like I made it to the other side of infertility treatments, and probably the only way I made it, like most of the women whose stories I read, is by asking for and sometimes demanding help. Yeah, I pretty much made people help me, except for those ...

In the heavily Sanskrit-influenced Japanese alphabet the first letter is 「あ」A, and the last letter is「ん」N. There is an idiom, [阿吽の呼吸」 , which means A-to-Z, or "From the beginning to the end," or baby's first cry to the last breath on his deathbed. Baby R's first cry was about 4 months ago, and already he has a growing vocabulary: Gyuu, U-kuuu, Urk, Aiya, Errr, etc. Sometimes when I say, "Helloooo" slowly, he looks me deep in the eyes and says, "Ye-llow!" and I flatter myself to think that he is some kind of genius 4-month old. These little baby sounds and involuntary noises are part of what I am now privileged to experience, a waking-dream I had only hoped for and almost given up even one year ago. But I digress...

I'm starting to try to run away again, but for the first time in my life it's not an option anymore. Using this blog again after almost a decade is my feeble attempt to document the progress I want to believe I've made since then. It may be delusional, but who's looking anyway? He's getting heavier...

Here are some questions I have personally or I have come across and have been unable to answer very well: Why am I having such a hard time identifying new people who are open to fighting for real change? Why is it so hard for me to plan ahead? Why does it feel like I'm just living day by day? And some BIG questions: - How do we know that what we are doing is fundamentally changing the system or is it just reform? - How do I know if I am going in the right direction? - Why is it every time I find myself doing things by myself; how can I change this concretely?

Had dinner tonight with a few people in Chinatown. A few things KB said made us kind of nod in recognition: You're not organizing if at the end of it, you're burnt out. If you don't have education, if you don't have a right hand, you can find people who do. They can fill that role. If you're too smart, it shuts everyone out. There are two models: one is to "empower" people you think are stupid or incapable, play god. Give them "power." The other is to "unleash" people's true power. To organize the undocumented, women, un-educated. The ones everyone looks down on. Which is organizing? Things to think about...

Two unexpected weekends in a row... Last weekend, we went to the beach when SF got an unexpected day off from work. It was nice to spend a day together, after a long stretch of only seeing each other for a few sleepy hours a day. But where is my life going? This weekend, many poorly laid plans fell through and I am home feeling a little relieved and a little empty. I did some gardening, which gave me a sense of both accomplishment and dread. Accomplishment from the beautiful little globes hanging where flowers used to be, dread because I don't know what to do with the dirt once we move in December.

My brother came to visit over the Memorial Day Weekend, and it was an action-packed weekend, now that I think back on it: Lunch at Cha-An Tea House 230 E 9th St. Shopping and browsing in Lower Manhattan. No picture available :( Coney Island, where Y is being burried alive... slowly... Dinner niku-jaga, ohitashi. Protest at Kawa Sushi Restaurant It was a blast though!

Today, X said to me and V (and U and Z and C were also sitting around the table as usual), "So many young people try to do things one way and when it doesn't work, they get depressed." I thought about a lot of young people and I noticed a few things... Like E, for example. If E would only zoom out for a second she would see how ridiculous she is. Everyone can see that E has been provided for and spoon-fed for most of her life. She has been given so much attention from her family that she has come to expect this even of others. Every time someone comes to me with a new story about E, I am reminded that what we do is not for the purpose of building an extended family of people who will buy us presents, call us when we are lonely, entertain us. It is to identify and develop fellow fighters in the struggle to win against the enemy. Or like F, who thinks that his main problem is that he doesn't know how to deal with people who are different. Even before the "dealing...

According to NY Times I will be 53 years old when Social Security runs dry. EXcellent.... And yet it doesn't seem like people are working any less. In fact right now a lot of undocumented workers are being exploited to the point where miscarriages and stress-induced cancers are not uncommon. Many work two people's jobs and get paid half - some even pay to work. What if all these people got paid the legal minimum (or - gasp! - enough to survive) and what if they weren't criminalized so that they could actually pay income taxes (they already pay sales tax) and become citizens? Then there would be more than enough tax revenue for Social Security and more than enough jobs for workers born in the US... But then we wouldn't have slaves to wash our dishes anymore. Gosh, I just can't decide which is better!

Since returning to NYC in March, I've been accompanied by a strange cough that gets worse when I lie down. I was really sick at the top of the month, and had to fight it down in order to dance at the lunar new year celebration. Because of the rest I forced onto myself, I got into the habit of staying home more, which is both a downer and also allows me to do a lot of historical and theoretical study on my own. I feel that this is where my main interest lies right now, to be honest. Lately, whenever I try to work with TW especially I feel a lot of resentment on both sides and it's not great. I need to learn how to work in a team and solve problems. So why am I studying right now instead of going out into the work-force?? I want to take advantage of unemployment to work on my communication skills, and also to deepen my understanding of what we are building towards. In order to work as a teammate, I need to resolve my conscious and subconscious disagreements regarding the directio...

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...