Tokyo at Dawn

Looks pretty neat...

Pharrell Williams in Tokyo

I posted a link to this on Facebook about a week ago, but I wanted to re-post it here. Pharrell Williams heads to post-quake Tokyo to talk to people about their experience, and how they think Japan will change in response to the recent disasters. The whole documentary is broken up into five short segments.

Now, Pharrell Williams isn't one of my usual go to's for social commentary, and nothing he says is particularly profound, but I think it's to his credit he just lets the people he meets in Tokyo speak for themselves.

My favorite thing about this film is the visuals. Many are Tokyo cliches, stations filled with tons of people, the skyline lit up at night, but they're cliches in large part because they reflect some truth about how one experiences Tokyo.

The parts that ring most true to me are where Williams gets led through some urban maze to some tiny bar/gallery/shop.

Enjoy.

Could You Pass the Crab Brain Pasta? - Japanese dinner party

Here I am sandwiched between two Australian guys named Nick, the three of us the only non Japanese at a dinner party where we were outnumbered by children under the age of four.

It's a bit of a long story how I ended up there involving multiple Australians, a Japanese girl who lived in France, and the Tokyo home of a Japanese women, who wrote popular books introducing French cooking to Japan

like 30 years ago

But the two people I have to thank most are my friends Nick and Mika for inviting me and hosting.

Our chef (and actually as I understand it he is a professional chef) for the evening also lived in France and prepared us a Japanese/French feast, the main course being ziti with a crab brain sauce (kani-miso). It tasted a bit different but was actually quite tasty.

The pasta was only one of many courses

Here we have a kind of beef artichoke stew, a plate of chicken sausage type meat thingy, edamame, salad, and a bowl of dipping vegetables that I couldn't quite identify...

That covers about a third of the courses, which included desert! A delicious tart.

The food was all around fantastic and more then we could all eat.

As I mentioned before there was a whole crew of Japanese rugrats running around

Here for instance is evidence that the socialization of Japanese children towards taking lots of photos starts very young.

Interestingly the party space was in the upstairs of the house in two bedrooms with a removable wall. We sat on the floor of tatami mats around low tables.

I had a great time, it seems to me that getting a bunch of people in a room around food is a great communal event in every culture.

Thanks again Nick and Mika for having me over!

Monday Morning Football

Good news the sports bar by my office carried the Sunday night game, there was even a panel of Japanese commentators.

The bad news... the game was Cowboys - Jets, if ever there was a game to make you wish they could amend the rules so that both teams could loose...

I managed to catch the last 15min of the game at lunch around 12:15 here. Just in time to see Romo totally blow it with a goal line fumble and an interception to hand the game to the Jets. What a clown.

The Adventures Of Grandmaster Terry Under The Happy Sunshine With Lady Wear Mesh Bikini

Your guess is as good as mine...

Couple Random Things

On my way home from work yesterday I popped out of the nearest subway station and was surprised to find a truck selling Crepes outside.

Why yes I will have a suturoberii banana chocco crepe...
It was the most efficiently made crepe I've ever seen.

Also a bike for someone with a Napoleon complex.

Annnd I'm back!, Wedding, Brazil Day, and complaining about jet lag

I arrived back in Tokyo last Wednesday after an eventful trip back to Boston. It was great to see friends and family, made a bit more poignent by the knowledge that I won't get to see many of them for who knows how long. The reason for my trip home was to celebrate my beautiful sister's wedding and to officially welcome my new brother in law Odreck into the family.

Congrats!

Fortunately we had great weather for the beach wedding. We had a few more days of sun down the cape before the weather went downhill fast with the arrival of Hurricane Irene just in time to cancel my flight back to Tokyo.

Quick question, as I'm a bit of the novice when it comes to flying back and forth from one side of the world to the other, is it possible to break the thing in your body that regulates your sleep cycle? I feel like after going back and forth to Boston and throwing in a few late nights has just convinced that part of my brain to give up and stop trying. I haven't had a normal nights sleep in two and a half weeks!

Anyway, two weeks after welcoming a Brazilian guy into my family I found myself at the Brazilian festival in Yoyogi park. I was a bit surprised to learn about the long and complex relationship between Japan and Brazil. I mean have the stereotypes of two cultures ever been more different? It turns out there is a large Brazilian community in Japan, over 200 thousand Brazilians live here constituting 81% of all Latin American immigrants in Japan. Conversely the largest ethnically Japanese community outside of Japan is in Brazil, with over 1.5 million people of Japanese ancestry.

Back during the turn of the 20th century Japan was still emerging from feudalism - the meiji restoration happening only a few decades before. However, the relative lack of violent conflict and disease meant Japan was one of the most highly populated places in the world. Based on my limited understanding it seems the gap between the fall of the old feudal system and the time it took for industrialization to get in full swing was a time of very few economic opportunities for your average Japanese pesant. Immigration was an outlet for many Japanese from their poor economic prospects at home. Unfortunately at the time America had strict quotas restricting the amount of immigration from Asia, as did other Anglophone countries like Australia. Brazil, however, was facing a labor shortage, so many poor Japanese picked up everything and tried their luck in Burajiru.

A funny thing happened in the late 1960s and 1970s, Japan really took off becoming one the leading economic power houses of the world. Brazil, like many Latin American countries at the time was under the grips of a politically repressive dictatorship and stagnating economic growth. Japan's complex immigration laws give preference to those with Japanese ancestry (up to three generations removed) and their spouses. So in an interesting reversal of the turn of the century trend you had Brazilians emigrating to Japan to pursue economic opportunities.

So there you have it, 100 years of the gears of history turning, lives lived, dreams dashed and fulfilled, all leading inexorably to a really awesome party in Yoyogi Park. Which happens to be a 15min walk from my apt.

Here was the main stage where there was a beauty contest going on and really awesome live music.

Of course there is nothing more certain to be at a Brazilian festival than lots of meat.

Meet on a stick and Guarana, yummm.

I love the Japanese label ha! Caipirinhas were also plentiful.

I thought this was interesting

There was a whole station set up by Banco do Brasil to send remittances back to Brazil. Notice anything strange about the poster?

Look again.

Still nothing?

It's in English!

This whole station was vigorously promoted by women sporting Brazil themed kimonos.

Having been caught in a hurricane back in Boston I was a bit worried about the typhoon that was supposed to hit Tokyo on this Saturday. There was a high chance of rain that could have ruined the whole event. Fortunately we got lucky and only got a few very, very light showers.

However, the chance of security guards sporting totally bad ass haircuts 100%

Overall great day and it's good to be back in Tokyo. Of course I got back home around 6pm, promptly fell asleep and woke up at 12am...